


Skin Deep

by orphan_account



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Tattoo Parlor, Drarry, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Harry has anger problems, M/M, Slow Burn, TW mental illness, The world hates Malfoy, magic tattoos, tw addiction, tw blood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-09-07
Packaged: 2020-02-10 00:12:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 49
Words: 131,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18648976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: When Harry accepts a job at Dean's tattoo parlor, he never expected that Draco Malfoy would show up, looking for a tattoo. But then again, since when did Malfoy do what was expected?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is entirely for my own self-indulgent reasons. I hope you like it!
> 
> I have no idea where this is going to go or how long it's going to be, so no promises. I'll update when I can! Let me know what you think :)

Usually, Harry lived for the music. The low light and flurry of movement made it near impossible for anyone to see his scar or his signature mop of unruly hair. In the club, he wasn’t Harry Potter, he wasn’t famous, and he wasn’t important. 

He could be anybody.

But tonight, the music was drilling into his skull, relentlessly throbbing around him, and he wondered vaguely how he ever stood it before. He groaned, pitching his head forward onto his arms, wincing at the sheen of sweat he could feel clinging to his skin. 

“Cheer up, mate,” Ron said, poking him sharply in the side and ignoring Harry’s answering noise of protest. “You’ll figure something out. You’re the Chosen One.”

Harry lifted his head, which felt like it was weighed down with alcohol and sleep deprivation, so that he could send Ron an angry glare. Ron just laughed. He took another swig of his drink and flicked the bottle cap towards Harry. 

“You don’t really need more fighting anyways,” Ron said, shrugging. His teasing smile had softened now into a thoughtful look, and he ran the tip of his finger over a nick in the wood. Harry remembered when Neville had put it there after a particularly rowdy night.

“But I _liked_ it,” Harry insisted, lowering his voice so that he wouldn’t attract Hermione’s pitying gaze. “I wanted to be an Auror.”

“Right,” Ron said, but he didn’t look convinced in the slightest.

“I did!”

Ron held his hands up in surrender, his eyes still fixed on the scarred counter of the bar. “You couldn’t follow orders for the life of you, and we both know it.”

Harry glared at him again, but he knew Ron was right, and that was what annoyed him most.

He had gotten off easy the first few occasions, but even Robards had a limit to the number of times he could accept the _Harry Potter_ card. Usually Harry hated his name, and wouldn’t use his fame to get anything he didn’t deserve, but with Robards, it was all too easy. The problem was, Harry wasn’t good at listening. He had too many good ideas, and there were too many opportunities that slipped just outside of the boundaries of regulations. 

No matter how much Harry protested and debated, Robards determinedly ignored that Harry’s methods _worked._ It didn’t seem to matter that he got better results than anybody else, because if he wasn’t following orders, apparently he was a liability.

Harry tried to restrain himself, he really did. He managed it for about a week, and then he’d made a call _just_ this side of wrong, and Robards had exploded. So now here he was, moping around at the bar because he was out of a job.

Harry wrinkled his nose at the smell of beer and sweat, swiping his finger through glittering ring of condensation left by his glass. It was immensely satisfying to watch it smear over the countertop, following his finger’s path.

“You don’t even need a job,” Ron mused, tapping a finger on his chin again. “You’ve got enough money to last a lifetime, probably.” It was a testament to their friendship that Ron’s voice was completely devoid of bitterness. 

“It’s not about money.”

“Then what’s it about?” Ron asked, sounding slightly incredulously.

Harry opened his mouth to say something — he wasn’t quite sure what — but Luna saved him.

“Hello Ron,” her voice floated over the music, somehow making it sound like the club was entirely quiet, bending to the whims of her voice. She smiling at him and slipped into the space between them. “Hi Harry.” 

Even when Luna was drunk, she was still eerily perceptive. Somehow, her wits were just as sharp, and her laugh just as clear. Harry envied the ease with which she carried herself, especially now when his head was full of cotton lead.

“Hey Luna,” Ron grinned, holding up his bottle in a silent cheer. “How are things?”

“Oh, things are fabulous,” she said absentmindedly, glancing over Harry’s shoulder towards where Ginny was sitting. “What’s wrong, Harry?”

Harry just groaned in response, scrubbing his hand over his face and relishing the tired sting in his eyes.

“He got thrown out of the Aurors,” Ron said in a low voice, as though speaking more quietly would spare Harry’s feelings. It didn’t.

“I’m sorry,” she said, and Harry grunted in thanks, but she plowed on. “I never got the impression that you liked it very much, though.”

“Doesn’t matter much now,” Harry sighed. “Robards isn’t going to take me back unless I can follow orders.”

“And there’s no way you can do that,” Ron grinned, and his shoulders starting shaking with silent laughter, as though he couldn’t help himself. 

Harry was grateful, in a way, at Ron’s ability to poke fun. It was better than Hermione’s worried looks, like he might crumble. The way a lot of people had taken to treating him after the war.

“Shut up,” Harry grumbled, kicking him in the shin. 

“Ow! Watch it!” Harry could hear the suppressed laughter still ringing in his voice. 

When he thought too hard about it, as he often did with things nowadays, he was almost glad that he’d been thrown out. For Ron’s sake. All throughout Auror training, even as Ron had gotten top marks, there had always been a lingering undercurrent between them. It was weird, the way it ran through their friendship like an unspoken rift. Because Robards would always congratulate Harry slightly louder than Ron, or clap him on the shoulder just one time more than Ron, even when Harry performed worse.

Now, Ron didn’t have to worry about the competition. He had never been good with competition, or with being overlooked.

“Are you applying for another job?” Luna asked, cutting through Harry’s thoughts and Ron’s laughter.

“I don’t know what to do,” Harry mumbled. The alcohol sat heavy in his stomach, and suddenly he longed to be back at his flat. The music seemed to have picked up a beat, in perfect timing with the uptick in his headache. 

Being fired had thrown things quite harshly into perspective. The thing was, he’d never really thought about doing anything other than becoming an Auror. Fighting dark magic had been the entire point of existence. That’s what he was born to do, and what he was supposed to die doing.

But he hadn’t died, and now the entire point of his life was lost.

“What do you like?” Luna asked, and Harry opened his mouth to answer. And then he closed it again. And opened it. And closed it.

Ron looked away to hide the amused expression that was stealing back across his face, and Harry glared at him again. Prick.

“I — er, well… I like Quidditch.” He grasped onto the only topic he was confident about.

“Why don’t you play Quidditch then?”

“Yeah!” Ron jumped in excitedly. “Quidditch! You could play against...” He trailed off awkwardly, the tips of his ears flushing a telltale pink.

Harry chose to ignore Ron’s blunder, instead turning him down.

“No.” Harry was shaking his head before Ron even started, because he knew once that happened, they would end up talking for the rest of the night about Quidditch. Or about something else, that he would rather not think about. “I don’t want to play professionally.”

“You wouldn’t really have to play against her,” Ron muttered awkwardly, his ears flaming a brighter red. “If that’s why you don’t want to play, you know you’d be in a different league.”

“I know,” Harry said, slightly annoyed that Ron wouldn’t let it drop. “I don’t want to play professionally.”

“Okay, whatever you want mate.”

Harry wracked his brains for another topic, not wanting to probe at the other crack in his friendship with Ron. It had always been so easy, being his friend, but there were little things that had wormed their way into their lives. Not enough to change anything, not really. Just enough to be there, ever-present and tainting their words.

Luna hummed thoughtfully, breaking Harry out of his reverie again, and stood up. “I’ll talk to you later,” she said absentmindedly, sliding of the bar stool. “I hope you find what you’re looking for.”

“I — okay,” Harry said, thrown by her abrupt departure and slightly cryptic words, but he was thankful nonetheless. Somehow Luna always seemed to know the right time to leave.

But Harry’s gratefulness towards Luna soured immediately as Dean took her place, nudging Ron so that he could squeeze in.

“Watch it,” Ron warned playfully as Dean elbowed him in the side, but Dean just smiled. 

“What’s up?” Dean asked, yawning. He was trying to be nonchalant, Harry could tell. A small surge of satisfaction worked its way into his chest at Dean’s obvious discomfort, but he pushed it away guiltily. He hadn’t talked to Dean in a while, and he wasn’t going to mess this up. Hermione had been nagging him about it for ages.

“Harry needs a job,” Ron blurted out, and Harry glared at him again. That was happening a lot lately.

He’d been through this enough times for the night, and didn’t really feel like hashing it all out again. Especially not with Dean. He was about to wave it off, to move the conversation to anything else — even Quidditch would do at this point. 

But Dean beat him to it. “You should come work for me.”

Harry jerked up, expecting to see the signature smirk that they had all acquired from Fred and George, the one that said it was all a big joke. But Dean looked surprisingly genuine. 

“What?”

“If you want to, I mean,” Dean shrugged. He was trying to look casual again, Harry noted. “I have some open spots I’m looking to fill.”

“What would I have to do?”

“Well, it’s a wizarding tattoo place,” Dean said hesitantly, like he hadn’t expected to get this far in the conversation. He probably hadn’t, and if Harry was being honest, he hadn’t either.

“Right. It's called Skin Deep, isn't it?”

“Yeah, that’s the one.”

Dean had always been an artist. Harry could remember from late nights in the dorm room, when roaring laughter was echoing around the room at another violent Gobstones tournament. Dean had always preferred to watch, sitting curled up in a chair with his sketchbook, making random people into his subjects. Or when he used to look at Dean’s homework (definitely not copying, definitely just looking), he remembered that Dean would have doodles sprawling across the corners.

“I can’t do art,” Harry said immediately, almost disappointed. It would have been good to work with Dean. To clear the air between them.

“That’s ridiculous,” Dean said, laughing. “Anybody can do art.”

“Not me,” Harry insisted, put off by Dean’s laugh. “I’m more of a brute-force kind of person, like an Auror.”

It wasn’t entirely true. Harry remembered spending several nights late in his cupboard, drawing out fantasy worlds in the dust on the floor, barely able to see them in the sputtering light. But that had been long ago, and besides, they had been little more than dusty blurs.

“You don’t need to know much about art.” Dean shrugged again. “You can start with the simple ones, like hearts. All the clichés are pretty easy to learn.”

Harry stared at him, dubious. It didn’t sound like much fun, if he was being honest, but he didn’t want to hurt Dean’s feelings. He still had some kindness left in him, whatever the newspapers claimed about his war-torn soul.

“Or you can help with charm development.”

Harry perked up with that, sitting up straighter. “What do you mean?”

“Well, wizarding tattoos are kind of a new art. We didn’t adopt them from muggles until pretty recently, but there are ways to make them move, or tell the time, or do a lot of other useful things. You could work on coming up with new charms and spells for that, if you want. Of course, you don’t have to work with me, it was only a suggestion.”

“That — yeah, actually,” Harry said, surprised at himself. Usually it took hours for him to make decisions, lists of pros and cons, and quite a bit of pulling out hair. “Could I try? For a week, or something like that.”

“Sure!” Dean smiled at him, all hesitant and genuine and nervousness. “You can start Monday, if you want. Working on spells, I assume? You didn’t seem too chuffed with the other option.”

Harry grinned back sheepishly. “I think the charm development is more up my alley.”

“Okay,” Dean said, “Okay. Okay, wow. Perfect. Cheers, mate!”

Ron, who had managed to hold his tongue during the entire exchange, slung his arm around Harry’s back, grinning in a satisfied way. Harry knew that the second they left, Hermione would be all over him, pleased and proud in that quiet way of hers that he was finally talking to Dean.

“The press will have a field day with this one,” Ron smirked. Ron seemed to be in a thoroughly over-amused mood today. “Harry Potter, the Savior, an artist.”

“What’s wrong with artists?” Dean asked, frowning at Ron. Ron grimaced, trying to take back his words quickly. “Nothing, of course! I didn’t mean — I just meant that, I mean of course artists are great, I…”

“Calm down, mate, I was pulling your leg.” Dean rolled his eyes and smiled, before standing up, stretching. This time, his comfort seemed less feigned. “I’ll see you Monday, then?”

“Sounds good,” Harry confirmed, feeling a strange tendril of hope rise inside of him. Although he would never admit it, the idea of doing something that wasn’t fighting was mildly appealing to him.

“Okay.” Dean paused for a second, contemplating Harry like there was something else he had to say.

Ron seemed to realize that there was a moment happening, and looking between the two of them, he cleared his throat awkwardly. “I’ll just — er —” He gestured vaguely over towards where Ginny and Hermione were sitting, but Harry grabbed his sleeve. He didn’t want Ron to leave, not now.

“No, it’s fine,” Dean said hurriedly, rubbing at the back of his neck and shifting his weight from foot to foot. “Thanks,” he said more quietly to Harry, and Harry nodded back. “See you later.”

“Yeah,” Harry said again, ignoring his too-tight grip on Ron’s arm. “Monday.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have another chapter! I don't have a beta, so all mistakes are very much my own :)

Harry bustled to the front of the parlor, distractedly greeting a customer. His mind was racing, a million ideas swirling through his head, visions of ink itching to spill out of his fingers. It had been three months since Harry had started working at Skin Deep, and the flood of visitors was still as steady as ever, crowding the shop like they had nothing better to do with their lives.

Harry’s fame had been a point of contention for them on the day he first started. News of Harry’s new job had gotten out more quickly than anticipated, and ofcourse, the media had a field day with it. They were all starved for more articles about The Boy Who Lived.

Luna told him that the news office had been in an uproar when he was fired from the Aurors, because they could always rely on his disobedience to concoct another story. He’d messed up enough missions to earn himself a permanent page in the papers. Evidently, they were now willing to latch onto any scrap of news about the Golden Boy, even if it was just his new job at a tattoo parlor. 

That being said, there was no denying that it was incredible for business. Before the news was flooded with pictuers of Harry working at the tattoo parlor, it had been a small place, mostly visited by the locals, with a few people stopping in now and then. But after the news articles, they had been _flooded._

Dean and Harry had been so busy working with customers that they barely had time to talk those first few days, but as soon as the papers started referring to it as, ‘Harry Potter’s Tattoo Shop,’ he offered to resign.

“I don’t want to take away all the credit from you,” Harry muttered, pulling Dean aside after they closed up. “This is your shop, and you deserve to be recognized for it.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Dean said, laughing good naturedly at him. “I don’t need recognition. I get to do art as my job. That’s enough.”

“Yeah, but —”

”Besides, the more customers we have, the more selective we can afford to be. I’d much rather be designing interesting tattoos than giving another dandelion or feather. Now we can turn away people that we don’t want.”

“I...are you sure?” 

“Of course. I like having you here, Harry. It’s good to talk with you again.” He said the last part more quietly, tentatively breaching the subject in a way that would allow Harry to back out of it if he wanted to.

“Look, Dean, I didn’t mean…”

“It’s okay.”

“No it isn’t. I’m sorry for how I reacted about — well, you know.”

“Harry, don’t. It’s fine, okay? I understand, and we’re all good now.” He said it firmly, resolutely, with just a hint of a smile.

“If you’re sure,” Harry said uncertainly. He had never been good at reading people’s emotions, and he didn’t particularly want to start now.

“I’m sure. You’re good at your job, by the way.”

“Thanks,” Harry said, smiling now, relief wiping his conscience clean. As clean as it could get, for the time being. “You’re good at your job too.”

“Of course I am, you tosser.”

To Harry’s surprise, he enjoyed his job immensely, far more than he had ever expected. Ron made sure not to let it go, throwing it in his face whenever he got the chance, and saying, “I told you being an Auror didn’t suit you!” Harry had to admit he was right, even now, three months later, as a customer stood before him doing a weird half-bow that made them look supremely ridiculous.

“Y-you’re Harry Potter!”

“That I am. What can I help you with?” Harry asked politely, feeling Dean walk up behind him.

“I — I wanted a tattoo.”

Harry quirked an eyebrow, feeling Dean smirk beside him in that unwitting way that seemed so uncharacteristic of Dean. 

“Well, yes. This is a _tattoo_ parlor.”

“Right,” they said, voice squeaking slightly. From embarrassment or awe, Harry wasn’t sure. He didn’t much care, either. “Harry Potter,” they whispered again, eyes wide.

“Maybe you should take this one,” Harry murmured to Dean, too tired to deal with another worshipper. 

“Oh, I don’t know,” Dean whispered back, a wicked grin on his face. “I think they’d love to work with you.”

“Shut up,” Harry hissed. Just because he was used to the fame and having to deal with overexcited people didn’t make it any less annoying. There were far too many people who just wanted to say they had a tattoo from Harry Potter.

Harry wound his way back through the shop, ignoring the crestfallen look on the customer’s face. He had an office on the far side of the shop that was out of reach from any demanding fans. 

His desk was an absolute mess, of course. He had only realized after the war that his meagre organizational skills during Hogwarts had been entirely due to Hermione’s nagging, and now they were abysmal without her help. He didn't mind it, though. The clutter made it feel more like home. More like _his,_ like he had found a small place in the world that he could carve out and make his own.

He shuffled absentmindedly through the mess, passing over the stack of unopened requests they’d received by owl. He’d deal with those later, he told himself. He definitely wouldn’t.

Instead, he focused in on his most recent project, a tattoo that was able to send messages from one person to another, written on their skin and changing at will.

This new occupation made Harry realize that he had never fully appreciated the potentials of magic. Somehow, he had never looked into inventing spells, even when he found out that Snape had created Sectumsempra. Maybe it was because he had permanently blocked the incident from his memory, behind a wall that held his uncontrollable emotions from the war.

He flipped open his notes, settling at his down so he could try to figure out this stupid spell. The more complicated the tattoo was, the more magic it took. That made it harder for the person to cast normal spells as well as manage the magic required by their tattoo, a problem that Harry hadn’t quite figured out how to solve yet.

“Harry!” Dean called from inside the shop, his voice muffled against the heavy wooden door.

“Coming!” Harry called back, repressing a sigh. He set aside the file he’d been intending to study, and wandered back to the front of the shop.

“Can you take over greeting customers while I do this tattoo? It won’t take long.”

Harry nodded instinctively, a muscle reflex at this point. “Yeah, yeah, fine. It’s far too early for this, I’ll have you know.”

“At least it’s not Oliver Wood waking you up for quidditch at four in the morning,” Dean shot back, stifling a laugh. “Remember that?”

Harry smiled, but didn’t think back on it, because he didn’t want his vision to be filled with Gryffindor red and gold. It was difficult for him to think of the happy memories when they were so closely tied with the smell of smoke and the flashes of light, the screams that still shattered his sleep.

The bell above the door chimed, and Dean shot him an apologetic look.

“I’m on it,” Harry said hurrying up to the front of the shop and bracing himself for another gaping look and flick of eyes towards his scar. Except this time, it wasn’t a loving fan.

“No.” The word flew out of Harry’s mouth before he could help it, like it had been buried in his chest and just needed the key to get out. “Absolutely _not.”_

Standing in the doorway, as tall and sharp as ever, was Draco Malfoy.

“Potter.” His voice was smooth, just the slightest hint of a sneer quirking the side of his mouth.

“What are you doing here?” Harry could hear his own voice rising as he talked, but it seemed he had lost all control over everything. The nerve of Malfoy, coming to _his_ parlor, to the haven he had built for himself.

“I wanted a tattoo,” Malfoy said, his voice still irritatingly calm. “Or do you not give tattoos at your tattoo parlor?”

Harry gawked at him, unable to help it. “You want a tattoo,” he repeated, dumbfounded.

“No, Potter, I want a sandwich,” he said, and even his posture seemed sarcastic. “Are you really still as thick as you used to be?” Harry was pleased to hear the note of annoyance that had slipped into his tone.

“Why are you here?”

“Do you usually interrogate your customers, or am I special?”

Harry’s blood was running hot and cold, all fire and ice and the complete inability to think straight. All he wanted was for Malfoy to leave, to get out and never come back.

“Don’t flatter yourself, Malfoy. I just thought you’d be too busy preening around your mirror. You wouldn’t want to defile your perfect pureblood skin, would you?”

A strange look passed over Malfoy’s face, but it was gone in a flash, and he leaned against the doorway.

“Well, are you going to let me in or not?”

“Absolutely not.” There was no question, not even the tiniest chance that Harry was going to let Malfoy in. Ever. It was clear from the way he talked that he hadn’t changed one bit.

Whatever shift there had been in Malfoy’s demeanor, he was straightening back up now, back into the safe zone of barbs and perfect poise.

“Of course not. The Hero would never let in a lowly piece of scum like me.”

Harry refused to be wound up. “Leave, Malfoy. I don’t know what you want, but you’re not going to find it here.”

“I want a tattoo, Potter. I thought you understood that. Although, maybe my expectations were too high, considering the sorry state of your brain.”

“Go to another tattoo parlor!” Harry burst out, fuming, all his nerves on fire. “Why would you come here, out of all the possibilities in the world?”

“Maybe I wanted to see you,” Malfoy sneered, and all Harry knew was that he had to get away, now.

“Malfoy, get out of my shop now, unless you want trouble.”

“What, going to call the Aurors? Miss them much?” Harry hated every part of him, from his posh voice down to his overly-shined shoes. He drew his wand, feeling the excited stir of magic inside of him and the familiar tingle in his fingertips.

“I may have left the Aurors, but I still know quite a few spells,” Harry snarled. From some distant part of his mind, he realized it probably wasn’t the best courtesy to threaten a customer, but he didn’t care.

“You didn’t need the Aurors, Potter. I seem to remember you were quite good at offensive spells. Especially cutting people open and leaving them on the bathroom floor.” 

Before Harry could respond, Malfoy turned smartly on his heels and walked away, the door clicking shut behind him with a small tinkle of the bell. 

“Don’t come back!” Harry yelled after his receding picture, his strides perfectly even. He fumed silently, tugging at his hair and trying to rid himself of visions with grimy bathrooms and bloodstained tiles. There was a long pause, where all he could do was close his eyes and will away Malfoy’s ragged gasps pounding inside his ears. 

The non-silence was broken by quiet footsteps walking up behind him. “Harry?”

“Yeah?” It was Dean, his brow furrowed in the way it always did when he found Harry outside, leaning against the railing with his head on his hands. Sometimes the shop became too much.

“I heard you yelling. Is everything okay? It wasn’t them again, was it?”

“No,” Harry said, sighing and wishing his shoulders would relax. He was out of his own control though, and his body was too disconnected to listen to his wishes. 

“Thank Merlin.”

A few weeks ago, there had been a group of people who came by, asking for tattoos of the Dark Mark on their left forearms. To say the least, it hadn’t ended well.

Harry was surprised Dean even brought it up again, because usually they tried to forget the way Harry’s vision had gone red, the way he had screamed in the same uncontrollable anger that tore through him right after the war. The way he had hexed them until they couldn’t walk straight, until they were collapsed on the floor in a flood of his fury.

“What happened, then?”

“Malfoy came by,” Harry spat out bitterly, kicking at the floor. It was irritatingly spotless, kept up by Dean’s impeccable cleaning charms, the ones Harry had never been able to master. 

“Oh,” Dean said softly. It was more a sound than a word, a small exhale of air. Dean hovered uncertainly by his elbow, as though he wasn’t sure how to comfort Harry without throwing him into a rage. “What did he want?”

“A tattoo, apparently,” Harry scoffed. “Likely story.”

“What tattoo did he want?” Dean asked worriedly, and Harry could tell from the look on his face that they were both thinking the same thing. _The Dark Mark._

“I dunno,” Harry said, turning to look at Dean. “I sent him away, didn’t I? I wasn’t about to let him in. It’s Malfoy.”

Dean frowned at him, eyebrows back to that furrowed place that sent a crease up his forehead. “You didn’t let him in?”

“No.”

“Why not?” He was still speaking carefully, his voice was a little higher than usual, a little more breathy and scared. Like a single word could break Harry’s reserved facade.

“Because it was Malfoy!” Harry said incredulously. “He was being a git!”

“Harry, you can’t just turn people out because you don’t like them!” 

Harry frowned. “Apparently I can.” He knew he should tamp down the anger, because it was bubbling just below the surface, begging to spill forward.

Dean heaved a sigh, looking out at the road, which was now devoid of Malfoy’s cutting figure. “Whatever, Harry. We can talk about it tomorrow. I have to get back to work.”

Harry knew that Dean was just putting it off so that he could get his temper under control, and for some reason that made him even angrier. Irrationally so.

“Fine.” He stomped towards the back room, angrily swiping his file to the side and throwing his head down onto the desk with a satisfying thump.

All throughout work that day, Malfoy’s cool voice rang in his ears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you wasted a minute of your life reading this, my goal has been accomplished.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm definitely studying math right now, I promise...
> 
> Anyways, I'm not super happy with this chapter, but I wanted to post something, so yeah :) It's a slow start, but it'll get more interesting soon! Hopefully

Harry burst into the Granger-Weasley flat in a whirl of blazing green flames, coughing to rid his lungs of soot. He straightened up, brushing off his robes furiously, only serving to make them look more disheveled.

“Harry?” Hermione’s voice traveled easily through the thin walls, cutting through his attempts to straighten his robes out. “Is that you?”

“Yeah.”

“Come on back, Ron’s just making dinner now.”

Harry hurried down the hallway, down the well worn path that he knew so well. There were pictures lining the walls. Ron and Hermione at their wedding, the three of them out for dinner, a drawing that Dean made, an article about Luna’s travels. They papered the walls, staring down at him and smiling.

At the beginning, it had been difficult for him to walk the line between hanging out with his friends and intruding on their life. At Hogwarts it was never a problem, because they were all on equal footing. But now it was Ron and Hermione on one side and Harry on the other, no matter how much they insisted that he was always welcome.  He’d gotten better at it now. He only came over for dinner a couple times a week and took meticulous care not to overstep his boundaries.

“You won’t believe who I saw today.”

“Voldemort?” Ron muttered absentmindedly, lazily waving his wand at the stove.

“Ron! That’s not funny!”

“It’s bloody hilarious,” Ron grinned, winking over at Harry. It was comforting, the easy familiarity of all this. Ron was determined to joke about the war, to turn every tragedy into something they could laugh at. Although Harry never questioned it, Harry thought it might be a testament to Fred’s memory.

It was better than Harry’s coping, at least. Most things were better than his months of lashing out at anything and everything that got close to him after the war.

“Who did you see?” Hermione turned towards him, dropping into a chair at their kitchen table, and drawing Harry’s attention back to the conversation.

“Malfoy.”

“Malfoy? I thought he was under house arrest!”

“Not anymore,” Ron said, suddenly attentive. “That’s over now. When did you see him? Is he causing trouble?”

“He came to Skin Deep, asking for a tattoo.” Harry dropped into a chair as well, pulling a face.

“What?” Hermione cried, jumping up from her chair. Ron dropped his wand, sending the potatoes into a flurry of motion, and Hermione hurried over to set it right.

“Yeah. He’s still a bloody git.”

“Probably wants a tattoo to match the one he’s already got,” Ron muttered darkly, jabbing crudely towards his left arm. 

“Ron!” Hermione said again, more sharply this time. “Stop it!”

“What?” Ron asked defensively, crossing his arms. “It’s probably true.”

Hermione turned away, shaking her head. “What did he actually want?” 

“I don’t very well know, do I? I sent him away.”

“Good one, mate.” Ron’s grin was back in place, his eyes trained on the rather lopsided pot of potatoes. “Bet he loved that.”

“Yeah, well, Dean sure didn’t. He yelled at me. Said I couldn’t kick people out because I didn’t like them.”

“Well, that’s bloody unfair!” Ron proclaimed, shaking his head. “It’s _Malfoy.”_

“That’s what I told him! He said it didn’t matter, because Malfoy’s already served his time, and I’m supposed to treat him like every other person that comes into the shop.”

“Maybe he’s right,” Hermione said slowly, after a fuming silence. Harry almost didn’t bother to respond, but he was feeling argumentative.

“No, he’s not. Do I need to remind you --”

“What Malfoy did? No, I remember. It’s been a long time, though.”

“Doesn’t make a difference.”

Hermione just hummed thoughtfully, but didn’t argue.

Harry sulked for the rest of the night. The potatoes were burnt, he was exhausted, and he wished Malfoy had never danced right back into his life like he was free from his crimes.

His temper was lurking, right there, below the surface.

\--

When Harry got to Skin Deep the next day, his anger was running dangerously high. It was like he had slipped back into seventh year, to that state where he was certain nobody understood him, and the only way he could deal with it was to attack. Isolate. It was a dangerous place to be in, especially when he was experimenting with charms and trying to focus on customers.

“You’re going to owl Malfoy and tell him he’s welcome to come get a tattoo.” Dean’s voice was firm and steely, with a resolution that screamed _it’s not a question._

“No, I’m not.” The anger was simmering, bubbling, held back only by the thinnest thread.

“Yes you are. I own this place, Harry, and you’re going to do what I say.”

The thread broke.

“What, is this payback then? Maybe you’re still insecure about Ginny. You think she still loves me more.”

“Don’t you dare bring Ginny into this.” 

From somewhere far off, somewhere not quite in his own brain, Harry admired the way Dean was able to keep his cool. He was like Luna, Dumbledore, all the people Harry had ever looked up to. Why couldn’t he do that too? Why couldn’t he quench the burning rage in his stomach or silence the haunts of his past?

“Why do you care so much?” Harry burst out angrily. “It’s _Malfoy,_ for Merlin’s sake. We turn away plenty of customers every day. He’s just one more.”

“Because you have a habit of holding unnecessary grudges.”

A pang of guilt replaced the anger roiling through him, and he looked away, not wanting to meet Dean’s consistent stare anymore.

“This one isn’t unnecessary,” he muttered, low enough that Dean could hear it but would know it wasn’t a serious protest. He couldn’t argue with good conscience when they both knew Dean held the upper hand.

“Harry. You can either quit your job here and go back to being miserable, or you can send Malfoy an owl and tell him you’ve booked a slot for tomorrow. With your luck, you probably won’t even need to work with him.”

“I won’t?”

“You said he just wanted a tattoo, no? Unless he has a special charm in mind, that’s all down to me.”

“Right,” Harry said, feeling slightly cheered up and foolish at the same time. He’d always thought being an adult would mean he had command of his emotions without even having to try. Random outbursts of anger and hatred had never been in the plan. Although, come to think of it, living hadn’t been in the plan either. He’d always expected to die fighting Voldemort.

Life was just full of surprises.

He walked sullenly back to his office, pulling out a piece of parchment and a paper, scrawling out a message that was as professionally passive-agressive as possible.

_Malfoy,_

_As it so happens, I’m obligated to offer you an appointment for your desired tattoo. You have a slot booked for tomorrow at 3:00._

_If this doesn’t suit your schedule, which is doubtless incredibly busy, let us know._

_Reluctantly,_

_HP_

He sent it off with their barn owl that they used for official communications, watching it fly smoothly away and missing the splash of white feathers against the sky. Just another product of their war torn past.

The owl came back sooner than expected, bearing a piece of parchment that had the Malfoy crest embossed on it. Harry looked at it, scoffing, because _of course_ he had custom made parchment. Why wouldn’t he?

_Potter._

_Well, isn’t this delightful. How the mighty have fallen. However, due to several other commitments, I’m going to have to request that we reschedule it for 3:02 exactly._

Harry stared at it incredulously for a minute, sure he’d misread the letter. He hadn’t thought Malfoy could actually get more annoying, but somehow the git always proved him wrong.

_Malfoy,_

_I’m afraid 3:02 won’t work. 3:00 is really our only open time for tomorrow, but you can always come back some other day._

_Or, this may be shocking, but you could find another tattoo parlor. In fact, that’s probably your best bet._

_Find another place,_

_HP_

He sent it off, smirking to himself, and it returned just as quickly as the last one.

_Nice try. I’ll compromise. 3:01._

Harry scowled, and abandoned all attempts at remaining professional.

_Malfoy,_

_3:00 or nothing. I’m not looking forward to it, but I don’t have a choice._

_Very annoyed,_

_HP_

He sent the owl off with a flourish, rolling his eyes. He didn’t bother to wait, didn’t bother to see if there was a return owl. He just went to sleep, with a headache already pounding in warning beneath his temples and a storm brewing in his veins that was threatening to burst forth.

Whatever this was, he knew one thing. There was no way it would end well.

Harry determinedly stayed shut in his office the next morning, barricading himself against all possibilities of seeing Malfoy’s smirking face. Unfortunately, even the thick wood of his office door couldn’t keep out the sound of Malfoy’s posh voice, as smug and annoyingly composed as ever.

He definitely hadn’t been on edge the whole day, straining and waiting for Malfoy’s voice, because that would just be pathetic. Maybe he was looking for an excuse to let out the anger, an outlet of sorts, but he didn’t want to dwell on that too long. His old mind healer would have loved to. It was a good thing he didn’t see her anymore.

Clear to his word, Malfoy showed up at precisely 3:01, not a second earlier, not a second later. It was the most ridiculous thing to get worked up about — only a minute on the clock — but it made Harry want to strangle him. Malfoy shouldn’t get to have the upper hand, not in this place that was _Harry’s and Dean’s._

“Hello,” Dean said, his voice pleasant, because that was Dean’s disposition with every customer. “What can I help you with today?”

“Potter set up an appointment. After unceremoniously kicking me out, of course.”

“I apologize for that,” Dean said earnestly, and Harry hated how sincere he sounded. Didn’t Dean understand who he was talking to? This was _Malfoy,_ the same person who was pathetic and awful and had almost killed too many people to count _._ “What kind of tattoo are you looking for?”

“ _You’re_ going to help me?” Malfoy asked curiously. “Not Potter?”

“Harry is in charge of the magical aspect,” Dean explained, running through his usual pitch. “If you want a tattoo that has some function, besides whatever personal reasons you want one, he can help you to design the charms that go behind it.”

“You mean I can avoid interacting with him?”

“If you just want a normal tattoo, then yes.” Harry could swear he could hear Dean smiling and he glared at the door, trying to break it with his gaze. He probably could've broken it too, because when his emotions got too strong, they messed with his magic. 

“I want a normal tattoo,” Malfoy said immediately, and Harry was surprised. _How uncivilized,_ he thought, and was dismayed to realize how much his thoughts sounded like Malfoy. 

“Okay,” Dean sounded satisfied. “What do you want?”

Malfoy paused, and then spoke in a lower tone, and Harry could picture the frown on his face. “I’m not here to cause trouble, you know. I really do just want a tattoo.”

“I understand,” Dean said, in that calm professional way of his. Harry hoped the calm was feigned, but knowing Dean, it probably wasn’t. Dean was always calm, in a way that fed into Harry’s unpredictable rages.

Harry had to admit that it was probably a good thing Dean was working with Malfoy instead of him. If it had been him, he would’ve been on another rampage, the fire burning deep inside his soul, yelling at Malfoy for whatever reason he could find.

But still, he couldn’t help feeling slightly put off that Malfoy was so opposed to working with him. 

He turned back to his paperwork, trying to gather his scattered thoughts and tune out the voices that tried to float back into his mind. He flipped absently through papers for about ten minutes, not taking in a single word, before his resolve cracked.

He’d never been good at minding his own business, especially when it came to Malfoy. He was curious, because not in his wildest dreams would he have imagined that Malfoy wanted a tattoo. Either that, or maybe Malfoy had some other plot stirring, some tattoo for dark purposes, some reason he needed to infiltrate their shop.

So, excuses firmly in place, Harry opened the door to his office and stepped out into the well-organized shop, flipping the sign on their front door to _busy_ so that they would have some peace.

He walked back to the room where Malfoy was currently getting tattooed, leaned against the doorway, and looked inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe people actually read things I write, but it's nice to meet you :) Come talk to me at loganaa-fic.tumblr.com if you want! I always appreciate feedback/criticism or just people to talk to!
> 
> I feel like this thing is going to end up longer than I originally intended because now I have so many ideassss


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I mean I'm literally just making this up as I go along so...that pretty much sums it up.

The first thing Harry registered was that this scene was far too familiar for his liking. It brought back a spiral of memories that he liked to confine to the hours of the night and the long moments when he didn’t have to function.

Malfoy was clutching at the sleeve of his robe, pulling it away from his skin in revulsion like it was burning his flesh. He was staring down at the mark with an absolute disgust that reflected the emotions bouncing off every square inch of Harry’s brain. It was black, twisting and coiling, blurred around the edges like it had become a part of Malfoy’s skin. Like it was one with his flesh. 

“You really don’t care what?” 

“No,” Malfoy said, voice low, but Harry could still hear it clearly from where he was standing. “Cover it. With anything.”

Dean frowned and nodded thoughtfully, lip snagging between his teeth like it always did when he was hard at work. It was strange how quickly Harry had come to learn the little things about Dean.

“And you’d rather have a tattoo than using a concealment charm or something similar?”

“I’ve tried.” Malfoy sounded like he couldn’t choose between dejected and annoyed, like he wanted to throw up barriers but was too tired. “Nothing works. It won’t be hidden.”

Dean nodded after a moment, and turned around. “I’ll go get some example designs, and you can see if there are any you like.” When Dean saw Harry standing in the doorway, his face melted into one of disapproval. Harry wasn’t surprised at the glare. He knew that the look on his face would probably make anybody wince.

Dean just narrowed his eyes in warning before striding out of the room and muttering, “Don’t do anything,” on his way out.

Harry ignored him, because he was too busy with the way his gaze was inexorably drawn to Malfoy. Maybe he’d been staring to hard because Malfoy seemed to feel it, and he tore his eyes away from the mark. Whatever vulnerability had been on Malfoy’s face vanished in an instant until he was all ice and cool barriers. “Potter. What are you doing?”

“I heard you come in to the shop,” Harry said. It wasn’t a lie. It also didn’t answer Malfoy’s question. “I didn’t know if you needed help.” 

Excuse.

“No, Potter, I don’t require your help.” His was speaking shortly, trying to insult, but too tense to do it properly. He had his arm twisted away from Harry so he couldn’t see the mark and Harry wasn’t sure if he was grateful or annoyed, but he wanted to grab Malfoy and force his arm back around, to make him stare at the mark until his eyes seared with black ink.

Malfoy had no right to hide the mark.

But Dean’s warning was still fresh in his mind.

“Fine,” Harry said finally, still glaring at Malfoy’s arm like his eyes could rip the flesh open and let the mark spill out into the world. He started to turn away. And then stopped. Because, of course, he couldn’t help it.

“What, Potter?” Malfoy asked, exasperated. He tugged down the bottom of his sleeve sharply, even though the mark was already completely hidden.

“Why are you trying to cover it?”

Harry couldn’t stop the words, and he’d given up on trying. Every careful filter he’d put up came crashing down when Malfoy was around, the infuriating git who could destroy every last thing that Harry had worked so hard to build. His shop, his calm, his barriers.

“I have no idea what you mean,” Malfoy snapped and it wasn’t a question. He hadn’t asked, _what do you mean_? It was a statement, a warning, cutting Harry off and telling him his interrogation wasn’t welcome.

Harry didn’t care. At all.

“You know exactly what I mean,” he shot back, unable to keep the wave of disgust from spilling into his voice. “Why do you want to cover the mark?”

“I have absolutely no idea,” Malfoy said, and if Harry had thought there was any chance of them actually communicating it was shattered with the sarcasm, sharp as a cruciatus curse. “I can’t think of a single reason for why I would want to hide a mark that shows my affiliation with a mass murderer.”

“But —” Harry could feel his fists clenching, his fingernails leaving the inevitable half moon indents but like usual, it only fueled him further.

“Harry,” a voice came from behind him, and Dean’s grip appeared firm on his arm. “Someone wants your help outside.”  He was staring Harry down, eyes fixed and narrowed as he jerked his head towards the door.

“Fine,” Harry said. He didn’t look at Dean. His gaze was trained on Malfoy and only Malfoy, trying to convey with his glare the words that he’d wanted to scream and shout and throw. Then he turned sharply on his heel and stalked out of the room, slamming the door quite harder than necessary and feeling an inordinate amount of satisfaction at the bang.

There wasn’t anybody at the front. In fact, the shop was completely devoid of life except for the muffled voices coming from behind Dean’s closed door. Harry realized with a start that Dean had just been trying to get him out of the way.

Fucking Dean.

With no possibility that he could focus, not with Malfoy spinning threads through his mind, Harry walked back to the door. He knew he should stay away, he really did. But Malfoy was right there. So, he cast a quick revealing charm, a one-way spell that would let him look through the door without disturbing them. Sometimes his Auror training came in handy. 

“The dragon,” Malfoy was saying, pointing to a picture Dean was showing him. “I want a dragon.”

“That’s fitting,” Dean said mildly, looking over the sketch. “Do you want me to design a new one, or —”

“Whatever is fastest,” Malfoy said immediately, like every word cost him a second of his life. It did, of course, but Harry had never valued his life that much to care. He was content to simmer in rage and waste away the minutes.

It was extremely strange, watching Malfoy sit there with his fists clenched, the mark peeking out from under a sleeve. Malfoy wasn’t usually tense — usually he was relaxed, collected. Unfazed by anything and everything around him.

Although, Harry realized, that wasn’t exactly true. Malfoy hadn’t been unfazed in sixth year in the bathroom, or in seventh during the battle, or when he was attacked by reporters and shaking at his trial. Malfoy was only unfazed when he when his walls held up. Much like Harry. Much like everybody.

Harry had to admit that it was breathtaking. He didn’t often watch Dean at work, too wrapped up in his own experiments. When he did, though, it never failed to amaze him. That was part of the reason he stayed away — not wanting to get wrapped up in it and stand there forever, taking in the stinging ink and beautiful patterns that flowed out of his wand, wrapping around people’s skin and branding them with his unique kind of art.

That was the reason Harry gave himself, at least. There was another one, buried deep inside of him, one that made him want to take Dean’s place and let the ink flow out of his _own_ wand, to make swirls and patterns and bursts of color where they hadn’t been, to decorate people and cover them in ink. That, though, that was out of the question.

So Harry watched. He stood outside and watched the dragon take place, white and majestic, swooping across and down Malfoy’s arm, poised as if in flight. He had no idea how long he stood there. It could have been minutes, maybe hours, but the ache in his legs told him it’d been long enough.

Malfoy had relaxed into the pain, the tension draining unexpectedly from his shoulders. Usually this was the time customers tensed up, when they had to distract them with a joke or a smile, with a comforting hand. But Malfoy was taking comfort from the pain itself, or maybe from the white ink that was running across his forearm, covering the dark mark, erasing it, washing it away.

Harry knew that look. It was the one Ron got on his face at a curse, the one that said _I’m feeling pain but I’m so used to it by now that it doesn’t matter_. The one that was almost accepting. Almost welcoming. It was less complicated to feel pain than to feel emotions, Harry knew.

He couldn’t pry his eyes away. He wasn’t sure if it was the winding flames and sweeping wings that entranced him, the fact that it was melded perfectly to cover the dark mark, or the fact that it was Malfoy.

Malfoy, sitting calmly and watching the tattoo etched into his skin. A dragon, white and beautiful. 

Harry hated it and loved it and didn’t know how to feel, so he didn’t. He refused. He stuck to simple facts.

Malfoy was a git. The dragon was beautiful. Malfoy was covering his mark. Dean was walking towards the door —

Shit.

The door swung open and Dean stepped out, frowning when he saw Harry.

“What are you doing?”

“I — er, I was —” Harry gestured to the door, tried to think of an excuse, and then shrugged. He slumped against the wall and rubbed a hand over his eyes, his eyelids feeling far more grating than he’d remembered.

“I was actually looking for you,” Dean frowned. “I need the new spell you made, the one that brings creature tattoos to life.”

“Yeah, yeah, fine,” Harry said, turning and stalking off to his office. He didn’t have the energy or willpower to argue right now. And something deep down inside of him wanted to see the dragon come to life, for it to swoop over Malfoy’s arm and curl up over the mark.

So he went to fetch the parchment, blotted words and messy instructions, a diagram that Dean had drawn because Harry had refused. When Harry slipped into the room again with the parchment, Dean wasn’t there. It was only Malfoy, staring down at the majestic tattoo with something almost like a smile on his face.

Harry shouldn’t be here. This felt far too intrusive, far too intimate, because Malfoy never smiled. He was about to leave when Malfoy looked up, and the almost-smile slipped away. He tensed, hand flying immediately to the hem of his sleeve.

Harry was tired. So he didn’t make any stinging remark. “It looks good,” he said simply, not taking his eyes from the curving wings and white eyes.

“Thanks,” Malfoy said. No sarcasm, no anger. Curiosity, maybe. Exhaustion, definitely.

Dean walked back into the room and found Harry there, nodding his head and taking the file. “Thanks, Harry,” he said, and then looked at him expectantly.

“What?” Harry asked.

“Don’t you have things to be doing?” Dean asked pointedly, but Harry didn’t move.

“I wanted to watch,” he said finally, shooting a sidelong glance at Malfoy.

Dean frowned. “It’s up to Draco,” he said, and Harry’s heart sank, because there was no way Malfoy would want him to stay. 

But Malfoy merely said, “Whatever,” with a halfhearted shrug and sank further into the chair.

So Harry stayed, and he watched, and he marveled at the way the dragon shimmered and shifted into life. It was impossibly pale, so white that it stood out even against Malfoy’s skin, and not even a hint of the dark mark was showing underneath.

The way it moved wass captivating, and Dean had done it perfectly — even when it curled its tail and breathed out a gust of flame, it did so in such a way that the mark never showed.

When Malfoy walked out of the shop with a cursory nod and word of thanks, Harry knew that the dragon would stay imprinted into his mind for a long time to come.

But he didn’t remain in his state of calm for long. The second he burst into Ron and Hermione’s flat, it all came pouring back into him with one huge turbulent crash.

“He’s trying to cover his mark!” Harry exclaimed, indignation and fury carving his words into the air. “He wants to hide his mistakes!”

“Wouldn’t you?” Hermione asked mildly. At least she wasn’t treating him with kid-gloves, the patronizing voice she used to use when he broke down. 

“No!” Harry said immediately, scaldingly. “I would take responsibility, not pretend it never happened. He’s at fault, he can’t just — just erase that.”

Hermione frowned. Harry scowled.

“Did he choose to take the mark?”

“I — what do you mean?”

“I can’t imagine he had much of a choice,” she said. “Not with Voldemort living at the Manor and threatening his family. He would have died, they would have died.” She shrugged, as though none of this was a big deal.

It was, though. Harry couldn’t handle the way Malfoy had sauntered back into his life like he was entitled to be there.

It wasn’t as though Malfoy had dropped off the face of the earth before he’d come into the shop, but it had been easier to ignore him when he was just words stamped on a page. A lot easier, it turned out. Now that he would be waltzing about, sporting one of their tattoos, it felt as though the shop was tainted. 

“Hermione, why are you defending him? You remember what he called you. The things he did and tried to do.”

“Yeah, and he was an awful bullying bigot. I’m not denying that. I’m only saying —”

“He’s not even trying to change,” Harry spat out. “He’s still just as awful.” 

Hermione frowned at that. “Why do you think —”

“Fine. You know what? Fine. I’m tired of arguing. This is going nowhere. It’s over now, he got his tattoo, he’s gone, and it’s all _fine_.”

None of it was fine. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Idk why but writing this makes me so happy :) I have no plans to end it anytime soon, and I'll do my best to keep updating (semi) regularly!
> 
> (By the way, all your comments make me smile like CRAZY, you don't even understand)
> 
> Thank you for readinggggggggggg :)


	5. Chapter 5

The next day started off as badly as the last had ended, one of those days that looked like everything was doomed to go wrong. It began when Ginny walked into the shop asking for Dean, striding right past Harry with nothing more than a polite nod, like he was merely a statue on the path to her real destination. 

He did his best to ignore them as she pressed a light kiss to Dean’s cheek, looking around the shop, and he was struck with a similar sensation as when Malfoy had walked into the shop. _Intruder,_ his mind warned him. Malfoy had no right to bring his past into this building. _Ginny_ had no right.

Harry didn’t know why Ginny bothered him so much. It wasn’t that he wanted to be with her, because he didn’t. Maybe it was that every time she walked past, her parting rant still rang in Harry’s ears, words that he didn’t want to relive or believe. 

It didn’t help that she’d evidently found her happy ending with Dean, and Harry was left to design magical tattoos. And deal with Malfoy.

It always came back to Malfoy. Even though he should have been happy that that ordeal with Malfoy was done and over with, it was still hanging over his head, like a humid presence that clung to his skin and wouldn’t let go.

If everything had gone according to plan, Harry would certainly have been back to normal within a week. A week was enough time to cleanse himself and the shop, to erase every memory and put the white dragon out of his mind. After that, he could pretend it had been a fever dream, one of those strange scenarios that his mind concocted when it was determined to drive him over the brink and into the land of insanity.

It would have been _fine,_ if not for the melodramatic tinkle from above the door, that signature sound that now automatically made Harry’s head turn. 

He almost swayed on the spot when he saw who it was.

“Not again!” He cursed vehemently, but there was nobody there to hear his anger. Once again, he was talking to nothingness, because the air was the only thing that would listen to him. But even his cursing didn’t make Malfoy dissipate, and he strode through the door, as solid as he’d ever been.

“What do you want?” Harry snapped, and Malfoy let out a displeased sigh.

“Are we really going to go through this again? If you’re going to make me leave, please do it now and spare me the time.”

Harry frowned. He didn’t move, didn’t speak, just stared at Malfoy, who was rubbing his arm absentmindedly.

“Do you want another tattoo?” Harry asked finally, and Malfoy stepped through the door, cocking his head to the side like he didn’t know how to answer.

“Why are you here?” Harry asked again, after a resounding silence. “I’ll see what I can do if I know what you want.” He was resigned, but at least Malfoy wasn’t being as obnoxious as usual.

“Is Dean here?” he asked, and Harry bristled.

“Dean’s busy, but I can help,” he said indignantly, and after a long pause, Malfoy nodded. He pulled up the hem of his sleeve in that way that still made Harry shiver, and forced it out in front of Harry, looking away. 

“What—?” Harry asked, staring down at his arm, recoiling when he saw it. The bell let out another tinkle, and Malfoy quickly hid his arm, looking shifty to anybody who didn’t know what he was doing.

“Can we talk about this somewhere else?” Malfoy asked, teeth clenched, and Harry’s curiosity won out. He beckoned Malfoy after him, heading to the back room and pushing open the door.

Malfoy snorted when he saw it, and Harry was pleased to see some of the tension leave him.

“I don’t know what I expected,” he said, looking around the cluttered room with a smile that was almost friendly. “Thank Merlin I didn’t have to share a dorm with you at Hogwarts.”

“Yeah,” Harry said, thrown and uncertain how to answer. “So, what happened?”

Malfoy sighed, sitting down in a chair without asking Harry’s permission and kicking out his legs. He was making himself at home, looking surpremely out of place with his pressed robes, surrounded by bits of parchment and fading ink.

“The mark isn’t like a tattoo,” Malfoy frowned, toying with his sleeve again so that he didn’t have to meet Harry’s eyes.

“What do you mean?”

“There’s dark magic in it. It’s not just ink, there’s — more. I thought it would fade after he died, but it hasn’t. I thought maybe a tattoo would cover it, but. Well.” He held out his arm again, reluctantly rolling up his sleeve to show the dragon tattoo, skeletal and torn, the dark scar of the skull showing through gaping wings.

The dragon was mangled, as though the mark had _killed it_ and left it there, more corpse than tattoo. It was chilling, to see the splashes of a grinning skull behind the defeated creature. It was like nothing Harry could ever have imagined.

He stared at it with a morbid fascination, his mind already kicking into problem solving mode.

“And you said that you tried covering it other ways?” Harry asked absentmindedly, but when Malfoy looked at him strangely, he tried to figure out how he’d misspoke.

“When did I say that?”

“When you were talking --” Harry cut himself off, realizing with a jolt. He’d overheard it when he’d been watching from the door, when he wasn’t supposed to be there, when Malfoy hadn’t seen him. “Er… Dean told me.”

Malfoy let out a thoughtful noise and then nodded. “Yes, I’ve attempted alternate methods. Concealing charms, guises, a modified disillusionment. Almost everything that I can think of. It still can’t get past the magic.”

“So…” Harry trailed off, looking at him expectantly.

“So, I need someone to help figure out a new spell.” Malfoy affirmed, glancing around the office again, corner of his mouth twitching. “And evidently, that’s your job. At least, that’s what Dean told me.”

“You want _me_ to help _you_?”

“That’s what I said, isn’t it?”

Harry shifted from foot to foot, to flabbergasted to fully comprehend. “But — but it’s _us._ We’d end up fighting the whole time.”

“Well, as long as you aren’t in a fit of rage, it seems we can talk civilly,” Malfoy smirked, ignoring the way Harry crossed his arms and backed away.

“It’s not my fault!” he said, hating how he sounded like a petulant child. “You were —”

“Potter. I wasn’t accusing you.”

Harry hated not knowing what to say, so he bit out another sharp retort. “That’s a first.”

Malfoy sighed again, leaning back into the chair — _Harry’s_ chair — like he had all the time in the world to wait. “Are you quite done?” Malfoy was making it feel like Harry was the one in the wrong here, and he hated it. Harry hadn’t done anything wrong. Malfoy was the one causing all the problems here.

“Look. I don’t know how you got this strange notion that we could get along, but it can’t happen, okay?”

“It can’t, or you won’t let it? I don’t hate you anymore, Potter. You’re a git, but I don’t hate you. I’m willing to call a truce.”

Harry grimaced, opened the door to his office. “Of course you’re willing to call a truce. You’d do anything to ignore your past, wouldn’t you? Do you even remember the things you’ve done?” he asked, glad of the fresh air pouring in. The office had become too stifling, and he needed the comfort of a ready-made escape route.

“You think people would let me forget?” Malfoy asked, and the vitirol in his voice scared Harry. “You think you have it so difficult, not being able to leave your flat because everyone loves you and the media will swamp you and people want your autograph. Well, you know what? I can’t leave my flat either, without being attacked, and to be honest, I don’t want to spend the rest of my life paying for mistakes I made while there was a murderer living in my home.”

Harry stared. And stared. “Right,” he said quietly. Somehow Malfoy’s words had made bile rise inside of him, quenching the simmering coals of anger with a wave of guilt. “Can’t you find someone else?”

“They say you’re the best,” Malfoy remarked simply. “But if you refuse, then of course, I’ll look elsewhere.”

Harry paused, glaring at the wall and wishing it would glare back so that he’d have a reason to get mad. “I need to consider. I’ll owl you.”

“Better than nothing,” Malfoy muttered finally. Then after a pause where his face contorted into something painful, he choked out the words, “Thanks, Potter.”

Then he was gone from the room, and Harry was left alone with the mess that he used to find comforting. Now it only reminded him of the stark contrast between him and Malfoy, burning his perfectly groomed hair back into Harry’s mind. He wanted nothing more than to forget.

Dean came in a few minutes later, leaning against the doorframe.

“Was that Malfoy?” he asked pleasantly, and Harry sighed. He almost didn’t want to tell Dean, because he was quite certain that Dean would make him work with Malfoy like he’d done before, but he didn’t have much of a choice. So he told Dean what happened.

Surprisingly, Dean didn’t force it. “If you don’t want to take him on as a long term client, that’s your decision to make,” Dean told him, gesturing to place where Malfoy had been. “I only made you give him an appointment the first time because we don’t turn people away based on who they are, only what tattoos they want. It’s your choice if you want to work on this magic.”

Harry looked back at him, gratified. “Thanks.”

“Are you going to do it, then? Going off what he’s said, it’ll be a difficult assignment.”

Harry knew he was right.

Inventing charms was interesting. But this — this search for answers, this mystery solving, this was why he’d joined the Aurors. And now there was another puzzle, standing there in front of him with white-blond hair and crumpled white wings.

“Malfoy?” Ginny asked sharply from the doorway where she’d appeared behind Dean. “What’s this about Malfoy?”

“He wants a tattoo,” Harry said simply, not feeling like explaining the whole thing, and frustrated that Ginny thought it was any of her business.

“If you want my opinion, I think you should do it,” Dean said quietly. “Make amends.”

“Right, go make amends with Malfoy when you still hold grudges over other people who care about you,” Ginny muttered, avoiding his eyes. Harry felt guilt worm its way into his stomach, the way he was sure Ginny wanted it to.

He knew he had to figure things out, to settle the lingering resentment that still fired up at the sight of Ginny and pushed him over the edge, but he couldn’t bring himself to talk to her. He didn’t trust that the pit of anger in his stomach wouldn’t wake up and attack if he tried to talk to Ginny alone.

He didn’t want a repeat of before. 

Harry tuned out of their conversation, and the rest of the day passed in an uncomfortable haze. Malfoy’s presence was a question, playing on repeat.

One that he didn’t know how to answer, and wasn’t sure he wanted to.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hehehe I don't know anymore, have a chapter :)

Harry stood in his office, tapping his fingers distractedly against the walls in a rolling pattern that felt like rain. He wanted to sit down, but every time he looked at his chair all he could see was Malfoy reclining in it with that posh expression of his.

His mind was on edge, craving any distraction, but it kept jumping back to Malfoy, making strange associations just to bring his face to the forefront of Harry’s brain.

He’d agreed to help with the tattoo.

It was a decision that he’d subconsciously known he would make from the second Malfoy asked him, despite the deterrent of who it was. There was no denying that Malfoy’s predicament was one of the more interesting cases of magic. Harry enjoyed most things about his job, but he knew that if he turned Malfoy down, the puzzle would plague him long after the white-blond hair had faded from his mind.

So here he was, trying not to fidget while he waited for Malfoy to show. It wasn’t working, and his fingers continued tapping of their own will, drilling into Harry’s brain. If it had been anybody else tapping their fingers, he would have yelled or stalked out, but as it was he couldn’t seem to make himself stop.

“Everything okay?” Dean’s voice arose from the doorway. He was holding a half-finished design for another tattoo and there were ink smudges running diagonally across his face, but he was grinning widely.

“Yeah, yeah,” Harry said, straightening up and trying to still his fingers. Once again, it didn’t work. “Is Malfoy here yet?”

“Should be any minute,” Dean said, his smile softening slightly. He had a knack for understanding Harry’s moods in a way that Harry envied, because he hardly understood himself. “You’ll be fine.”

“I know.” He didn’t.

And then the bell above the door rang, and Harry stood up automatically. In theory, it could have been anybody, but he knew it was Malfoy. He wasn’t sure how, but he _knew._

“Malfoy,” Harry said as he approached the door, dipping his head in greeting. He was determined to be civil. This would go better than it had previous times.

Malfoy smiled tentatively at him, and it was less harsh than his usual smirk or sneer. “Potter,” he said, more subdued than Harry had ever seen. Except, perhaps, at the trial.

“Come to my office,” Harry said, relaxing slightly when he saw that Malfoy wasn’t going to snap at him. He was using the fewest amount of words he could, because that meant less of a chance for him to mess something up. “We can try to figure it out there.”

Malfoy nodded, following him quietly back to the room where he’d been waiting impatiently only moments before. He brushed past Harry and sat down in the chair again, smiling smugly in a way that somehow still seemed less cruel, although Harry was inclined to see the worst. 

Harry rolled his eyes and perched himself on the desk.

“Of course, the royalty gets the chair,” he said sarcastically. He crossed his legs to try to rid himself of the antsy feeling that was building up inside of him.

“I’m glad you’re finally seeing sense,” Malfoy grinned. It felt friendly, and strange, and Harry wasn’t sure how to react. He hated it, and he didn’t hate it, and he didn’t know if he should or not. “So, how is this going to work?”

“First, I need to understand the magic that Voldemort —” he ignored Malfoy’s flinch — “used when he gave you the dark mark. What magic is still in the mark that won’t allow you to cover it.”

Malfoy nodded slowly. “Okay,” he said. “How?” Simple, to the point. Harry was grateful. This was the part Harry wasn’t looking forward to. He’d thought about it quite a bit while he was trying to get to sleep, tossing and turning and trying to get a certain face out of his head. Needless to say, he hadn’t slept much.

“You might not like it,” he warned, but Malfoy merely shrugged and nodded for him to go on. “I’m going to need you to tell me exactly how it happened. How you got the mark, what spell, as much as you remember. The history. The more detail you can go into, the better. It’ll be more likely that I can understand what I’m dealing with.”

Malfoy didn’t say anything. He looked back at Harry, seeming to shrink into the chair like it could protect him from something. Harry wasn’t sure what.

“Can you do that?” he asked, waiting as patiently as he could. “It’s really the only way, if we want to find a way to counteract the magic.”

Malfoy started at the word _we,_ but he nodded slowly all the same. “I can do that.” It didn’t sound confident, but it was the most positive response he’d given.

“Good,” Harry said. “Listen, Malfoy, I know we have a bad history.”

“Potter,” he interrupted. “I’m fully aware that you don’t enjoy my presence, but I trust you with your work, and you’re noble enough that I’m not worried you’ll go spilling it to everybody. I’ll do what I have to in order to get this covered.”

“I don’t _not_ enjoy your presence,” Harry said finally. “It’s — well, it’s hard, to have to deal with all these old — I don’t know. Memories that I’d rather not think about. But here, you’re the client, and I’m trying to understand your tattoo. That’s all.”

Malfoy nodded.

“What can you tell me, then?”

Malfoy took a deep breath, sighing and leaning back into the chair once more. It curved to fit around him, contorting to match his shape, and Harry hoped that it wouldn’t stay like that after he left. He didn’t need the distraction.

“It’s… complicated,” he whispered, and it was strange to see Malfoy almost lost for words, because he always had a retort on the tip of his tongue. Or, he always _had._

“Most things are,” Harry said drily. “I think I can handle it.”

“Are you going to hold it against me?” Malfoy asked, crossing his arms tight to his chest. “Are you going to suddenly remember all the awful things because we’re reliving it, and have a grudge all over again? Because I’m trying to escape from this, you know. It’s why I want it covered. I want to get rid of the past and not think about it anymore.”

“Don’t we all,” Harry said, laughing in a way that wasn’t particularly amused. “No, I’ll do my best. I — well. I still hate everything that you did, but maybe this will help me understand more. In any case, this is professional, like I said. You’re the customer, I’m figuring out the magic.”

Malfoy nodded. “Okay,” he said, taking a deep breath like he was steeling himself. “It’s a long story.”

“Then let’s get started,” Harry smiled, trying to look more open than he felt, but not certain it came across how he intended. “I have a lot of time.”

“At first, when I was growing up, my father taught me about how muggleborns were inferior, about how they would dilute the magic of our world and make wizardkind less powerful. I believed him because it made sense, and because I wasn’t used to questioning things that I didn’t have any particular desire to question.”

Harry stopped him, already feeling a prickle of rage, but tamping it down for Malfoy’s sake. “What do you mean, dilute the magic?”

“There’s a lot of wizarding theory and culture based on blood and blood magic,” Malfoy said. “Look, you have to hear me out and try not to get offended, because I know blood status is a touchy subject for you.”

Harry nodded, gesturing for him to go on. It felt like Malfoy was stalling, going back far enough that he wouldn’t have to talk about the mark, but he was talking and that was a victory of its own.

“Okay.” Malfoy took another deep breath. “I don’t know how much you know about this, growing up with muggles, but blood actually does play a role in magic.”

Harry raised one eyebrow, trying not to look too dubious.

“There are certain forms of old magic, very powerful spells that work better with purer blood. We wanted purer blood to uphold the old forms of magic.”

“But there are muggle borns who can do magic, and purebloods who are squibs,” Harry frowned.

“I know, Potter. They’re exceptions, you know. For the most part, magical blood yields wizards and witches, and muggle blood gives muggles. And like I said, there are some old forms of magic that muggleborns can’t do as well, regardless of their magical abilities.”

Harry opened his mouth to argue, but Malfoy cut him off. “I’m telling you what I learned and how I learned it,” he said, waving off any protests. 

“Right. So you believed in pureblood supremacy because of old forms of magic.”

Malfoy nodded. “I also wasn’t the nicest person, if you remember.”

Harry snorted, and nodded. “No kidding.”

“I —” Malfoy stopped, like the words wouldn’t come out. “In retrospect, there were reasons.”

“Don’t —” Harry started to snarl, but Malfoy held up his hand again.

“ _Potter._ I’m not trying to excuse my actions, okay? I’m telling you what my life was like, because you wanted to know.”

“Right,” Harry said again.

“I was lonely and jealous, so I was mean, which made me more lonely and jealous. It was one of those vicious cycles. And, as you know, my parents were Death Eaters. They’d always been supportive of the Dark Lord, even if they weren’t vocal about it in public.”

Harry took a deep breath, nodding for Malfoy to go on, because he _had_ promised that he wouldn’t get worked up over this. “So you went along with it,” he concluded. “You went along with it because your parents told you to.”

“In essence, yes,” Malfoy said. “I didn’t want to argue, because they were most of my world. They -- you have to understand, Potter, that they were my parents.”

“And when they asked you to become a death eater?”

Malfoy laughed at that, an ugly laugh that wasn’t mean, but bitter and sharp nonetheless. “Asked? Are you under the impression that the Dark Lord politely asked people to become his followers?”

“Well, no, but —”

“I didn’t have a choice _.”_

_“_ You always have a choice.”

“Maybe you do, and maybe you would have if you were in my place, but I couldn’t. It was either join him, or let my family die. So I joined. Don’t fucking argue with me on this point. I wanted to live -- still do. I could never sacrifice myself like you.”

Harry nodded at last, because Malfoy was staring at him so intently that it was unnerving. “Okay. Tell me how it happened.”

Malfoy’s posture relaxed slightly, and he shifted in the chair. “I must admit, Potter, I’m impressed. You haven’t yelled or hexed me yet.”

Harry smiled wryly. “I’m barely holding back, believe me.”

Malfoy snorted and allowed a smile. “The summer after fifth year is when it happened. He wanted revenge on our family, so he assigned me the task of killing Dumbledore.”

“You didn’t have the mark then?”

“No. He gave it to me later, after I had accepted his challenge. His task.”

“And you did accept.”

“Like I said,” Malfoy nodded, “And like the mark, I didn’t have much choice. Yes. I accepted.”

“So,” Harry said eventually, tired of the resounding silence. “So.”

“So,” Malfoy repeated with an amused dip of his head. “He gave me the mark.”

“How?”

“It was a spell,” Malfoy frowned. That was all he said.

“Do you remember the incantation?” Harry asked. “Anything about it?”

“You think Voldemort had to speak if he wanted to cast spells?” Malfoy scoffed. “No. If he did, then it was silent. Wordless.”

“Show me what he did.”

Malfoy cringed at that, slowly shaking his head. “It was — complicated.”

Harry stared at him, waiting to see if he would continue, but he said nothing. He merely sat further back in the chair and stared at a point right over Harry’s head.

“Are you going to tell me?”

Malfoy took another breath, and Harry was entranced with the rise and fall of his chest, because it was easy to forget that other people were alive sometimes. Thinking, feeling, existing, breathing, all like him.

He opened his mouth. “I — well.” He stopped and looked away, more uncomfortable than Harry had ever seen in his life. “There was…”

“Take your time,” Harry said gently, because he sensed that this was something Malfoy didn’t want to talk about. He tried to channel Dean, to understand Malfoy’s emotions so that he could figure out how to act, but there was so little reference for how to act around Malfoy that all he could do was wait. 

“I can’t — I can’t say the words,” he said finally, deflating like all the air had been torn out of him, staring fixedly away. “I’m trying, but they won’t come out.”

“Try again,” Harry said briskly, but when Malfoy opened his mouth, nothing came out.

“Is it a spell?” Harry asked. “Something that’s stopping you from speaking?”

“No,” Malfoy said, looking supremely frustrated and almost embarrassed, although Harry hadn’t thought it possible. “I could theoretically tell you, but I can’t — I can’t say the words.”

Harry sighed and nodded. It made sense, if he really thought about it. It wasn’t as if they had some huge bond of  trust between them, seeing as they’d been self-proclaimed enemies for most of their life. 

No wonder it was hard for Malfoy to talk to him about it.

“Is there someone else you can tell?” Harry asked after the silence remained. “A friend who you can tell, and then they can tell me?”

Malfoy laughed with surprise, a laugh that felt almost real. “Friends? I knew you were delusional, but I hadn’t realized the extent. Potter, people don’t want to be _friends_ with me.”

“What about Pansy Parkinson? All the Slytherins?”

“Most of them fled. Some of them died. The others want nothing to do with anything that might connect them to their past.”

“Oh,” Harry said finally. Was he supposed to apologize? He figured not. “Well. This was a lot for today, I guess, and maybe we can take a break. I can’t do much without knowing how he gave you the mark, but I’ll look into other kinds of branding magic. In the meantime, think about it and practice saying it out loud, maybe? Or find somebody else that can tell me by proxy.”

Malfoy nodded, standing up from the chair in one fluid motion. 

Before he left the room, Harry stopped him. “Wait. Just — thanks. For trusting me enough to tell me about how you grew up.”

Malfoy looked back at him curiously, with a shrug and a small smile. “Thank you for working with me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm just gonna leave this chapter here and *run*


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe this is actually going somewhere? I was convinced I would get stuck but writing without a plot in mind is actually so much fun

The next day dawned crisp and clear, autumn leaves swirling outside his window and plastering themselves against the panes. Harry had fallen asleep in the midst of a pile of books, which was a depth he’d never expected to sink to. That, he’d always reasoned, was something he could leave to Hermione.

He let out a yawn, stretching and rubbing at an inkstain in his robes that he couldn’t remember putting there, then flipped his book open to try to get in a few last minutes of reading before he had to go into the shop.

He was already far too invested in this, in researching different marking spells, but there were somany different brands of magic that could be used to mark people, and he’d quickly fallen down the rabbit hole. Book after book, spell after spell, each with their own horrifying roots and practices. As the stack of books accumulated in his bedroom, Harry grew more and more apprehensive. But that only made him read more.

When he walked into the shop with spells and marks that required ritual sacrifices still spinning through his head, he found Dean already there.

“How did it go with Malfoy?” he asked curiously. “I didn’t hear you break anything, and to the best of my knowledge there was no screaming, so I’m going to hazard a guess and say that it went well?” 

“It’s not as hard as I anticipated,” Harry conceded. “He’s less — well, _difficult,_ than he used to be.”

Dean smiled. “I’m glad you can see that. I wouldn’t have thought you had it in you.” It could have been mean, but Dean was grinning at him, shaking with silent laughter in that way he did when it was truly genuine.

“Hey!” Harry exclaimed, swatting at him. “Stop that!”

Dean kept laughing, shaking his hair out of his face and straightening up. “By the way, what do you think about this sketch?” 

He held up a twisting design of an oak tree, struck by lighting and bending over against the storm, bowing with a brokenness that didn’t feel broken at all. It looked powerful, despite everything thrown against it, like it could prevail even with a shattered trunk.

“It’s beautiful,” Harry whispered, “Although I’m the wrong person to ask for artistic advice.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Dean said, prompt and immediate. “That’s absolutely ridiculous. You’re perfectly artistic, and if you could let yourself loosen up a little bit, you’d see how talented you are. You could design tattoos, you know.”

Harry bristled, shaking his head and backing away. He didn’t want to have _this_ discussion again. “No. No, no, I couldn’t. I can’t draw.”

Dean nodded, in a way that almost seemed disappointed, but Harry wouldn’t — couldn’t — let himself dwell on it. He had more important things to focus on, and he had a feeling he would need all his wits about him when he was working with Malfoy

When Malfoy walked into the shop that morning, he didn’t automatically follow Harry back to his office like he’d expected. Instead, he stopped in the front entrance and didn’t move. He stayed there, a statue, glued to the concrete outside the front door as if it would be dangerous to enter.

“Are you coming?” Harry asked impatiently, jerking his thumb towards the back office, but Malfoy shook his head. 

“No.” He glanced back out the door and around the shop. “Come to the Manor.”

Harry froze.

“What?”

“Come to the Manor,” Malfoy insisted. “I can’t tell you what happened, with — with him. I can’t. But I can show you.”

Harry stared at him weakly, trying to figure out what on earth he was talking about. What was at the manor that he didn’t have here? He hated the apprehension, the first thought that went through his mind, because it was more than ridiculous. _Voldemort,_ he’d thought. _Voldemort is there._

“A pensieve,” Malfoy said shortly, when Harry still made no move. “I can show you the memory because it’ll be easier than telling you what happened. I won’t forget any details. You can see —well, you can see what happened.”

Harry didn’t move. “Why do we have to go to the manor for that? We can bring a pensieve here. Something along those lines.”

“Fine,” Malfoy said, sounding frustrated. “You can’t apparate with a pensieve, it disrupts the way memories are preserved. Surely you must know that, but if you insist, we can work out something else.”

“Oh, for Merlin’s —” Harry looked around the shop desperately, as though maybe there was another option lurking in the corner somewhere. “Fifteen minutes, that’s all.”

He hurried off to tell Dean, and when he returned, Malfoy was waiting with an arm outstretched.

“What —?”

“Side-along apparition, Potter, unless you know the exact location of the Manor?”

Harry took a deep breath, and grabbed Malfoy’s arm — perhaps slightly too tight, maybe with the intention of causing discomfort. To his credit, Malfoy didn’t comment on it.

For the first time, Harry welcomed the sucking crush of apparition, the jolt of his stomach and twisting of his flesh, the feeling that he was simultaneously being torn into a thousand pieces and being compressed into a oblivion. It was a welcoming jolt of life, of exhilarating panic and adrenaline.

The only thing that broke it was Malfoy’s forearm underneath his palm, sturdy, warm, too real for the distortion that apparition gave everything else. He didn’t want normalcy right now.

And then they materialized again, the world reforming before his eyes, the colors jostling into place and splashing over each other as they raced to meld into shapes.

The first thing he noticed was that the colors were duller here. It was as though the entire world had faded, leaving only deep hues of gray and black, a notch of brown here, and off-white there. Even Malfoy looked more dull — white hair, black pants, nothing but dark and light and monotonic shades.

It made Harry want to curl up, to throw cans of paint and change this perfectly manicured house until it was more like his office. Messy, creative. Real instead of manufactured, living instead of merely alive.

But he couldn’t. 

“Let’s go,” Harry said hurriedly, striding through the gate with more bravado then he felt, and trying his best to ignore how well he knew the feel of the gravel beneath his skin, how it would clutch at his flesh like it had when the snatchers dragged him here.

There were peacocks strutting across the path, white and eerie. Blanched, like the rest of the house. Starched, faded, the color sucked out and pulled away. They should have been beautiful, but instead they were deathly pale, like ghosts but more solid, like a twisting pearlescent dragon that spiraled up Malfoy’s arm.

Harry shuddered, refocused on the path, and saw that Malfoy didn’t look quite comfortable either.

They walked through the doors, and although Harry had never been adept before at sensing magic, he’d gotten quite good at recognizing the weight of it with his new job. He knew how to manipulate it, to twist it, to shape it into beautiful new spells.

But this magic — this magic wasn’t a drape like usual, it was a concrete brick, leaden in the air and almost pushing him to the ground with the force of it. This wasn’t magic that could be molded, because it was already twisted irrevocably into absence instead of light, a mess of heaviness that Harry had never felt so strong. It was suffocating, stifling, muffling, and he wanted to get out of the house before it consumed him whole.

“What happened?” he gasped to Malfoy, not caring who it was, only caring about what this horrifying weight in the air was. “What happened to this place?”

Malfoy looked at him, surprised. “You can feel it?”

“What _is_ it?”

“Do you really not know?” Malfoy asked bitterly, strolling ahead down the hallway like the weight had no bearing on him, like he was used to being crushed and suffocated and torn up. It was almost like the sense of apparition, only dimmed and darkened, more harsh but less so at the same time. Harry hurried after him, wading through the thickness around him.

“It’s dark magic, isn’t it?” Harry asked quietly, not sure he wanted his suspicions confirmed, but Malfoy nodded, striding faster like he thought he’d made a mistake bringing Harry here.

“Left over from the Dark Lord,” Malfoy told him, and Harry had never heard someone say his name imbued with so much spite like that, a disrespect that would have gotten you killed in an instant only years before. “Dark Magic leaves traces, as you know,” he remarked, gesturing to his left arm where the mark still stained him black.

“Why do you live here?” Harry asked, and it ran across his mind that maybe Malfoy liked it. He’d always had a thing for dark magic. Maybe instead of pressing, it lifted him up, floated around him and grasped at him with its tendrils of strength.

“My mother,” Malfoy said, and not another word.

Harry didn’t press. He didn’t want to find out more things he never wanted to know.

It was hard for him to concentrate in the house, weighed down as he was, but he didn’t miss the neatly organized furniture and rows of pictures adorning the walls, most of them old and influential purebloods. It reminded Harry eerily of Slughorn’s wall of photos. His _collection._

When they finally reached a drawing room, Harry stood there awkwardly until Malfoy waved him down into a chair. He sat, tentative, wishing he had the confidence Malfoy projected when he’d claimed Harry’s chair for his own, but even his so called Gryffindor courage was failing him. The remnants of Voldemort and the war were far too tangible.

“ _How_ do you live here?” Harry tried again. “When it’s like this?” He waved a hand around him, knowing Malfoy would understand.

But Malfoy didn’t respond, just shot Harry a look that sent more chills down his spine, although it could have been from the house. It was a look that said _this isn’t open for discussion._

So Harry backed off. He wasn’t here to get to know Malfoy, he was here to do a job and he would do it as fast as he could.

Malfoy pulled out the pensieve and pressed his wand to his temple. Harry watched with fascination as he slowly drew out a glimmering strand of silver, bright even against his skin but devoid of color like everything else in the house. Too perfect, too neat. Harry wanted messy -- craved his office and the disorganization the plagued it, that welcomed him in and wrapped him up with _light_ magic.

Malfoy dropped the memory into the pensieve and beckoned Harry over. Harry went, hurried and reluctant, eager to get it over with, but not wanting to dive into Malfoy’s mind or wade through the darkness in the air.

The surface was swimming with ghostly faces. Harry thought he saw his own before Malfoy prodded the surface with his want and it faded away with a ripple.

“After you,” Harry said drily, gesturing at the pensieve, but Malfoy shook his head.

“I’m not going in.”

“What?”

“I’m not going in, Potter. You need this memory, you can look for the details. I don’t want to be there if I don’t have to.

“Okay.” _It’s only a memory,_ Harry reminded himself.

He lifted a finger and dipped it into the pensieve, feeling the jolt, and tumbling away.

His senses were overloaded. He’d experienced too many sensations for one day — apparition, the dark magic, diving into the pensieve, and now being inside Malfoy’s mind.

When he adjusted, there was another strange sensation, washing over him. He was in the manor again — it was equally as dark, still without hue, but this time no heaviness pressed down on him. Apparently memories couldn’t convey what dark magic felt like, and he was unequivocally glad.

Voldemort sitting at the head of a long table, cold as ever, a sight that made Harry’s hand fly immediately to his wand and made his heart stop in his chest.

“Draco Malfoy,” the voice came. High, cold, slithering, caressing, _reaching out._ “Come here.”

And then Harry saw Malfoy. If he thought the colors had been dull before, it was nothing compared to the pasty pallor decorating Malfoy’s skin, the tremble in his hands and the stumble in his legs, the miscoordination in his muscles that could be caused by nothing except pure terror.

He approached Voldemort, who watched on with amusement. Relishing his power, perhaps, although Harry wasn’t sure if it was possible for him to feel pleasure.

“Your family has been a disgrace,” he said, and it felt too human. Harry wanted to run, and it was only a memory. He didn’t want to think about what it could have been like firsthand. “But I’m giving you a chance to prove yourself. There is a task that you must complete.”

Malfoy didn’t speak, didn’t acknowledge, didn’t make a sound. A statue, merely a statue, waiting and dreading and unable to move. 

“Albus Dumbledore must be killed.” 

Malfoy’s eyes widened slightly, from shock or horror or some other inexplicable emotion, Harry wasn’t sure. But other than that, his reaction was carefully controlled, like he’d gotten good at shoving his emotions to his mind instead of his face. He nodded, once.

“Good,” Voldemort smiled. “And if you fail.” He didn’t finish the sentence, but he didn’t have to, because his hand twitched on his wand and his eyes glowed red and the ghost of past murders ran through the air around the table. Murder, and worse.

“Yes, my Lord.” Harry wasn’t even certain if that’s what Malfoy had said, because his voice was impossibly quiet, stifled and shoved down into his throat. “I understand.”

“Then,” Voldemort proclaimed, “Will you take the mark?”

It was a non-question and a threat, and Malfoy answered without hesitation. “Yes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updates might slow down a little because I have to study for finals (ughhh) but I'm definitely not abandoning it, so don't worry!


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ehhh have a chapter :) I didn't proofread it, so sorry for any mistakes! 
> 
> trigger warning at the beginning for blood/violence

Malfoy was standing in front of Voldemort now, his arm outstretched and trembling uncontrollably. It made him seem more human — less collected, more terrified, more real — and for some reason it made Harry wish he was merely a cold statue, like Voldemort. Marble was simple. Emotions weren’t.

Voldemort held out his wand, a smile twisting his face that was inhuman even for a memory, stretching his skin tight as though he wasn’t used to the motion.

He pressed the wand to Malfoy’s forearm and didn’t even blink, instead dragging it slowly across the skin.

In its wake, the skin on his forearm split entirely open, peeling back and leaving only raw flesh, sending a wave of blood trickling down his skin.

Malfoy stared down at his arm, and it was his expression that broke Harry. He was almost detached, like this was normal, like he’d seen worse. He didn’t flinch at the pain — the pain that was surely tearing through his body, sending shocks through his arm.

He just stared.

Then Voldemort drew a vial out of his robes, pouring a black liquid onto the raw flash, and now, _now,_ Malfoy was screaming, like he’d never felt pain in the world until this moment, like he wanted nothing more than to _leave_ the world.

Harry turned away, his stomach twisting in on itself, unable to watch any further. When he finally turned back, Malfoy’s skin had been stitched back together, but the black liquid had permeated the surface of his skin, staining him black, through the skin and deep into the flesh.

Harry was wrenched out of the memory, leaving swathes of color and dust in his path.

He had no idea what he was supposed to say to malfoy after what he just saw. It should have been something consoling, maybe, but instead what came out was --

“Why couldn’t you have just told me?”

Malfoy stared at him, in a shock that turned into frustration as the seconds passed, Harry was relieved, in a way, because it meant he didn’t have to deal with difficult emotions. Anger, frustration — that he could understand. That was familiar territory that he’d spent many days in. 

“I’m sorry, Potter,” Malfoy spat out. “What was I going to tell you, that the Dark Lord cut a skull into my arm and replaced the flesh there with a substance that practically burned my arm off? Would you have believed me?”

“Of course —”

“Well, fuck off. I’ve showed you, which is better than describing it in any case, but I guess that isn’t good enough for _Harry Potter.”_

“Can we get out of this house?” Harry said, wanting to fight but wanting even more to escape the oppressive atmosphere. He didn’t want to admit that maybe Malfoy had a point. 

“Gladly,” Malfoy spat, and Harry held out his arm this time. Malfoy’s fist was fierce around him, fingernails digging into flesh, but that was suddenly insignificant next to the picture of Voldemort cutting out Malfoy’s flesh.

They reappeared in the tattoo shop with a whirl, Harry’s stomach lurching dangerously. From the apparition or the memory, he wasn’t sure. Malfoy stalked back to Harry’s office without a word, and when Harry followed suit, he found Malfoy there already sitting in the chair, cross-legged once more. In _Harry’s_ chair.

“I’m sorry,” Harry said finally, because it seemed like he’d lost all filter between his mind and his thoughts now. “I — I was angry at you for taking the mark, before.”

Malfoy nodded, sour. “Of course you were. I don’t blame you. I’m angry at myself.”

“But —”

“Doesn’t matter. That wasn’t the worst that happened,” Malfoy whispered, and the way he spoke and sat made it seem like his mind had floated off into a different world. His body was grounded, but his mind was echoing with the war. “That was nothing, in comparison to the rest. I just — don’t like talking about it.”

“I don’t blame you,” Harry said quietly, trying not to think about _the rest._

“Do you understand why I want to cover up the mark now?”

Harry nodded, even though his mind was screaming _no._ He didn’t understand — he was angry and resentful, and even after what he’d witnessed, he wanted Malfoy to remember everything else he’d done and said at school. To Ron, to Hermione, to Neville, to him. The names. The hexes. When he tried to get Hagrid fired.

Even though the war made all that pale in comparison, it was still at the forefront of Harry’s mind. Being through trauma didn’t change the face that Malfoy had also been an awful bullying git.

On the other hand, Harry didn’t want to start a fight. So instead he nodded, he smiled, and he patiently waited.

“What now?” Malfoy asked, apprehension still tingeing his voice, like the memory had brought back far too much of his past. 

“We have to figure out how… well, more like _what_ he used to stitch your skin back together,” Harry said, wincing at the words. “If you have any ideas —”

“I’ve tried,” Malfoy said, dejected. “You won’t find anything. I’ve looked, I’ve —”

“We aren’t giving up,” Harry said firmly, and it wasn’t so much for Malfoy’s benefit as it was for his own, because he _had_ to figure out this mystery. “Where have you looked?”

Malfoy sighed. “I have a — library of sorts, at the manor.”

Harry cringed, because mention of the Manor was apparently enough to do that. Malfoy noticed his reaction and nodded his head in defeat, like that’s what he’d expected.

“We don’t have to go back,” he said.

“We should,” Harry replied, insisting but hoping Malfoy would say no all the same. “It’s probably the best place to start.”

“I’ve searched most everything,” Malfoy cautioned him. “It’s not likely…”

“This is my job,” Harry repeated. “I’m paid to do this, you know that. You’re the one paying me.”

“Right,” Malfoy said, and a strange shadow passed over his face at the words, but it was gone so quickly that Harry was sure he’d been imagining it. He was always bad at reading emotions, so he didn’t think about it too much. “Should I come back tomorrow, then?”

Harry sighed, glanced at the clock, and knew his mind wouldn’t be calm enough to get much more done than this. 

“Let’s go,” he said finally, letting himself sound impatient because he didn’t have the willpower to stay completely calm just now. “We can get some books to bring back here, because I’m not staying there to read.”

Malfoy nodded, brisk, and he held out an arm. Even though he’d only done it once before, it already felt like a routine.

This time, Harry wasn’t as crushing with his grip, not intending to harm in the way he might have been before — and this time, he realized how touch-starved he really was. Ron wasn’t one for physical affection, and Hermione kept her distance from people after the war, not liking to touch or be touched any longer. Too much comfort, maybe. Harry wasn’t sure.

But Malfoy’s arm was warm, the skin feeling normal. Like there wasn’t a mark in sight. Harry tried not to revel in the feeling of contact with somebody else.

They were gone in a twisting second, reappearing in a large dusty room of the Manor, the feeling of darkness settling over him once more. 

There were books lining the walls, and when Harry got a closer look he shivered, because they all shared one thing in common.

They were all about dark magic, blood magic, sacred traditions and rituals, the kinds of books you might find in the restricted section of the Hogwarts library. Malfoy was walking along the rows quietly, hand trailing over the dusty spines, leaving smudges across them that looked out of place among the pristine bindings.

He carefully pulled out books, handing them to Harry before finally coming to a stop. They disapparated back to Harry’s office, and Harry realized once more how touch starved he really was, feeling long fingers encircle his wrist, holding on.

Harry set the books down on his desk, handing one to Malfoy.

“Let’s get started,” he said briskly, handing another over to Malfoy. Malfoy took them with a kind of reverence, as though it was something to be respected, and it set another flood of bile churning through Harry’s stomach.

Of course, Malfoy loved dark magic. He was no different was he? Harry watched with disgust as Malfoy flipped through the pages, eyes alight, like it was the most fascinating thing he’d ever seen.

Harry turned back to his own book with a surge of anger, flipping it open. His eyes skimmed the page, but he took nothing in, especially not when Malfoy broke him from his reverie.

“Look at this,” he said, turning to Harry like they were old companions, the book spread open on his crossed legs and leaning forward in Harry’s chair.

“What,” Harry snapped, angry, but Malfoy didn’t seem to hear. He pointed to a passage almost excitedly, and Harry grabbed it from him, catching Malfoy’s attention immediately.

He looked up and uncrossed his legs, frowning at Harry’s tension. “Something wrong, Potter?” 

“Nothing’s wrong,” he snapped.

He looked briefly down at the page Malfoy had been pointing to. It was just a title chapter, reading _Blood Connections,_ and Harry nodded brusquely, pushing the book back across to him.

Malfoy raised his eyebrows, but didn’t comment. Maybe he’d realized he didn’t have to right to comment on other people’s behavior after everything he’d done.

Harry turned back to his own book.

“Read the chapter and tell me if you find anything,” he said sharply to Malfoy over his shoulder. He did his best not to spend too long staring at the page like he wanted to burn a hole through the book.

“Okay,” Malfoy said, sounding hesitant but burying himself in the book again and seeming to lose himself to the world.

Harry skimmed his own book, hating how well-used it looked. The pages were thumbed, some of the corners folded down, some of the ink bleeding. He hated it because he could practically see Malfoy sitting in the library with a pile of books surrounding him, flicking through the pages and memorizing spells that were designed to liquefy thoughts or distort perception.

It was horrifying magic, all too familiar, and Harry hated that he was still helping Malfoy with this. It would have been fine if not for the _happiness_ on Malfoy’s face, like this is what he loved to do.

Malfoy let out a noise of frustration. “I can’t figure out what it is he put in my arm,” he muttered, turning back to Harry.

“Sorry,” Harry barked impatiently, not even bothering to take deep breaths like Hermione always insisted he did, because he wanted the anger to flood him right now. He wanted the bliss of simmering rage, because it would distract him from any other emotions he might be feeling or he was supposed to understand.

“I —” Malfoy frowned. “Maybe we should continue this at a later date,” he said, still staring at Harry with eyebrows furrowed, like he was a puzzle that had to be figured out. Harry didn’t _want_ to be understood. “You obviously don’t want me here right now.”

“Fine,” Harry said, thankful that Malfoy was the one to suggest it. “Tomorrow?”

Malfoy nodded, and then picked up the book he’d been reading, carrying it to the door. 

Harry stared at the desk when he left, feeling sick to his stomach and regretting that he’d ever talked himself into this.

None of this was okay. Not Malfoy, not anything else in the world.

Why, after everything he’d done to save the world, was it equally as messy as it had been before? Why was he still feeling the pulse of anger deep inside him, and why was Malfoy still the one to start it off?

Harry heaved a sigh and walked back out to the front of the shop, apparating to Ron and Hermione’s flat, because right now, he needed to forget the world and everything else in it.

He had to laugh and smile, to listen to Ron’s bad jokes and challenge Hermione to another game of chess (at which they were depressingly well-matched). He needed to forget about Malfoy and the press of magic and the rivers of blood that he could still picture, forever imprinted on to his brain.

And even more than that, he needed to forget the expressions on Malfoy’s face — the blankness from before, the slightly less blank but still dull look from now, his words which were far less barbed, everything that seemed to have mellowed down.

He wanted to stop feeling, to stop the emotions. He craved the anger that took over his body and made decisions for him so that he didn’t have to worry about it anymore, but in place of that he would take Ron and Hermione, because they were the next best thing he had.


	9. Chapter 9

Harry spun into Ron and Hermione’s flat, easily passing through the wards which had long been tailored to him. He often came here on Thursday nights, their regularlyscheduled dinner together, because it wasn’t like it used to be at Hogwarts. 

They weren’t living in the same dormitory anymore, talking casually with each other every day, tossing homework questions and jokes back and forth every day like they were nothing more than quaffles.

“Harry, is that you?” Ron’s voice came from the kitchen, and Harry nodded instinctively before realizing they couldn’t see him.

“Yeah,” he called back, and he was disappointed to find that he could hear the exhaustion weighing down his own voice. 

“I’m making potatoes!” Ron called back, and Harry felt himself sagging, tension leaving him and a strange relief flooding over him. He hadn’t known how worked up he’d been over all of this tattoo business until now.

“You okay?” Hermione asked worriedly when Harry walked into the kitchen. She was flipping absentmindedly through a book, a quill scribbling on a piece of parchment behind her entirely of its own accord.

She appeared to hace noticed the dark circles around Harry’s eyes and the frown that felt etched into his face.

“Yeah, yeah,” he said, waving her off absentmindedly. “I’m fine. A busy day at the shop, that’s all.”

“Hmm,” Hermione said, looking at him like she could see right through whatever story he concocted. Hermione could always see through him.

Harry looked away quickly, not wanting her to somehow decipher what was happening from the look on his face. He didn’t need anybody else grilling him about Malfoy. Not now, not ever.

“Did something happen?” Ron asked, evidently not wanting to let it go, and Harry slumped even further.

“More like some _one,”_ he muttered darkly, looking in the other direction.

“Who was it?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Harry said, wishing he’d never brought up this topic of conversation in the first place, because it was opening a whole can of flobberworms that really didn’t need to be opened. “Forget about it.”

“Oh, come on,” Ron said, shoving a forkful of potato in his mouth and ignoring Hermione’s disapproving look. “You can’t tell us some sketchy person came to the shop and then not say _who._ I’ll get it out of Dean if you don’t tell me, you know I will.”

“Fine,” Harry sighed, avoiding their eyes. “It was Malfoy.”

“ _What?”_ Ron asked, dropping the fork and hastily waving his wand to clear the potato from where it was now splattered over the floor. “Again?”

“Yeah,” Harry said, rubbing a tired hand over his face. “Look, I’m not in the mood to talk about him more, alright? I’ve only just had to deal with him all day and I’d much rather talk about anything else.”

And so they did — the rest of the night passed pleasantly enough, though not without Malfoy’s presence lurking at the back of their conversation.

“What did he want?” Hermione asked, frowning.

Harry explained the situation to them, including what he’d seen in the memory, and it felt so good to get it all off his chest that he wondered why he hadn’t done it sooner.

“And you agreed to help him?” Ron asked, eyebrows raised to the cieling. “You had a choice, and you chose to help Draco Malfoy?”

Harry sighed, rolling his eyes. “Yeah mate, he needed somebody’s help.”

Ron shook his head like he’d gone mad and stared down at the plate wth a slight frown.

“Does that bother you?”

“No, only I’m surprised you haven’t murdered him yet.”

“I am too,” Harry admitted. “Can we be done with this? Hermione, I might need your help with some of the branding research, if that’s okay.” She nodded happily, staring at Harry a little too closely for his liking — although he wasn’t sure what she could see, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to. Some uncomfortable truth that came with emotions, and _that_ he most certainly didn’t need.

The next day when Harry went to the shop, he’d managed to get his temper under control slightly, remembering that this wasn’t about Malfoy, it was about the tattoo.

He found Malfoy already waiting for him, lingering around the front of the shop, and Harry ushered him in. Like always, he curled up in Harry’s chair like it was his own.

“Did you find anything?” Harry asked, taking extra care to be civil after what had happened the last time they were in a room together. “In that chapter.”

Malfoy shook his head, sighing and deflating slightly.

“Nothing,” he said, dejected. “Nothing at all. He — well you saw, he put something under my skin, but I don’t know what it could have been.”

“What did it feel like?” Harry asked, trying not to think of Malfoy’s face, contorted in pain as it had been.

“It hurt,” Malfoy said simply, and he sounded almost amused. “Although I’m sure you could tell that from the memory.”

“Can you tell me anything else?” Harry asked, carefully avoiding the mention of the memory.

Malfoy opened his mouth to speak, but at that moment, Dean opened the door.

“Am I — interrupting?” he asked, looking between Malfoy, who was sitting crosslegged in Harry’s chair and looking supremely comfortable considering the topic of conversation, and then looking back to Harry, who was sitting on the desk facing Malfoy.

Harry had to admit, to anybody else, they would have looked… almost like friends. Acquaintances, at the very least. It shook him slightly.

“No, no,” Harry said, “Not at all. What do you need?”

“Somebody needs your help with a design,” Dean said bluntly, and the way he said it made it sound like there was something more to the story than he was letting on, but Harry tried not to question it too much. 

“Okay, send them in,” he said, waving at the door. 

And then, behind Dean, a shock of bright red hair appeared.

Of _course._

She stared from Malfoy to Harry and back, much in the same manner as Dean had. 

“It looks like you’re busy,” Ginny said cooly, her gaze aimed pointedly at Malfoy.

“No, no, this can wait,” Harry said hurriedly, not wanting to make it seem like he was brushing off Ginny in favor of someone else. “Malfoy, could you wait outside? I’ll — it’ll only take a minute, I’m sure.”

Malfoy brushed past Ginny without so much as a glance, let alone a word.

“What was that all about?” Ginny asked when the door closed behind him, gaze trained stiffly on where Malfoy had just vanished.

“I told you, I’m working with him for a tattoo design. You knew that.”

Harry still couldn’t believe he hadn’t broken under all the stress lately, and he was being supremely careful not to let his breaking point occur around Ginny.

That couldn’t happen, not again.

She nodded, a small sneer curling her lip, but she didn’t say anything else.

“Did you want a tattoo, then?” Harry asked, and Ginny shook her head, still overtly rigid.

“Not particularly, no. I wasn’t sure how else I could talk to you when you keep avoiding me. We should — figure things out, you know. I know we always say things are okay between us, but they really aren’t, and it’snot fair to anybody else.”

“Who?”

“Dean, Ron, Hermione. Harry, we’re both close to all of them, and we can’t seem to co-exist in the same room.” She sighed and tugged at the end of her ponytail, something Harry knew she always did when she was tired.

“We seem to be doing the co-existing fine right now,” Harry joked, desperately hoping Malfoy couldn’t hear their conversation. That would be the only possible thing that could make this. interaction any worse than it already was, although that practically seemed impossible at this point.

“Harry, don’t play games. We both know the reason we broke up, and I know you’re better at controlling your anger now, but you have to get over it.”

“I’m sorry,” Harry said, feeling miserable and wishing night would close in already, to settle his throbbing temple and take him away from the world for a time. “I _am_ over it, it’s just… hard. Truce?” He held out his hand to Ginny in a half-arsed apology. She shrugged, as though that was enough for her, and shook his hand. Her hand still fit into Harry’s how it used to, and he felt a small twinge in his chest. He wondered briefly if he’d ever have anyone like that again.

Ginny left with a sad smile twisting the freckles on her face, and Malfoy took her place, settling back into the chair he seemed to have claimed as his own.

“What was that about?” he asked simply, a curious look covering his face, and Harry looked pointedly away.

“Do you have any other theories about the tattoo?”

“You’re avoiding the question.”

“Well spotted,” Harry snarled. “It’s none of your business.”

“Calm down,” Malfoy rolled his eyes, “I don’t care about you, but if you’re going to be in a sour mood all day because of —” he gestured at the door, “— because of whatever just happened, at least give me a heads up. I don’t need you blowing up for no reason and slicing me open and leaving me to bleed on the bathroom floor like last time.”

“That was forever ago!” Harry yelled indignantly.

“For fuck’s sake, it was a joke,” Malfyo said, sounding exasperated. “If we’re going to keep treating our past like it’s something we have to ignore, or some big thing between us, it’s going to mak this a lot more difficult,” he continued tiredly. “I’m done trying to prove myself, Potter. Can we please just accept our past and move on? I’m tired of even saying this — it feels like it’s been the brunt of our interactions since I came here, and i’m tired of it.”

Harry stared at him. Stared some more. He thought about what Hermione had said, thought about what Malfoy had done and how he’d been forced, thought about what had changed since. 

“Yeah,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry. I don’t hate you anymore, I really don’t.”

“Right,” Malfoy said. He granted a tentative smile to Harry and then leaned back in the chair. “I’m sorry for what I did.”

“Okay,” Harry said quietly, ”I’m sorry for what I did too. Let’s go back to this research, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Malfoy said finally.

Harry felt a calm settle in his chest, replacing part of the pressure that had been choking him up for the past few days. Maybe he should have let go of this grudge sooner, because it wasn’t doing anything other making everything more tense between them. Maybe it was okay to make jokes like Malfoy had done, like Ron always did.

“Right,” Harry said, “Where were we?”

Malfoy pushed a book over to him.

“We were reading,” Malfoy murmured, “Although I’m still surprised that’s something you’re capable of.”

Harry almost snapped back, until he looked up and saw the amusement glimmering on Malfoy’s face, and that was when he laughed. Actually laughed. It felt odd to laugh at something Malfoy said, something genuinely funny. To let himself just _be_ around Malfoy.

“Shut up,” he laughed in response, and Malfoy smirked at him. Harry felt a heat creeping up his neck that he couldn’t manage to suppress, and he looked away, muttering under his breath.

They sat there side by side, flipping through books. Harry listened to Malfoy’s snide comments as he went and smiled when his eyes lit up as he found a piece of magic he wanted to explain to Harry. There was still an unease lurking inside of him at the fascination Malfoy had with dark magic, but he did his best to hold it back. It didn’t have a place here, not when he’d promised to give Malfoy another chance.

Finally, as the day drew to a close, Malfoy gathered the pile of books in his arms.

“Tomorrow, then?” he asked, and Harry gave him a small nod. 

“Tomorrow,” he said, and this time he watched Malfoy go with something that could almost be considered a smile if you looked close enough.

Dean walked up beside him.

“You’re getting along better, then?”

“Yeah,” Harry said, annoyed that Dean had been right again, but really, what else would he have expected? “And I talked to Ginny.”

“I know,” Dean said. “Thanks.”

“I should have done it a long time ago,” Harry admitted. “I’m sorry I’ve made things so difficult for you and her, it’s all a mess.”

Dean shrugged and looked at him. 

“I have another tattoo to design,” he said then, changing the direction of the conversation abruptly. “Do you want to come help me with it?”

Harry glared at him, feeling a boil in his chest that he’d hidden all day.

“I’ve told you,” he insisted, “I don’t do art.” He knew what Dean was trying to do — take advantage of his momentary good will to try convincing him that he should do art. It rattled him, made him want to scream.

He _couldn’t do art._

Dean sighed, nodded. “Fine,” he said, “Then do you want to come watch at least? You can help me bounce ideas.”

With a long suffering sigh, Harry followed him back into his office where he already had a pile of sketches waiting to be refined.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aHH I'm sorry it's been forever since I updated, but it'll be a lot more regular now!! I love you all!


	10. Chapter 10

When Malfoy walked in the next day, Harry felt like he was seeing things through a different lens, because Malfoy’s smile seemed less like a sneer than usual, and the upright way he carried himself seemed less stiff and more lightweight.

“Potter,” he said with a nod, the word wasn’t punctuated with the same vitriol as usual.

“Malfoy,” Harry said in return, because that felt like the done thing in this situation.

They made their way back to Harry’s office, and when Malfoy settled into Harry’s chair with his legs curled up to his chest, Harry felt more amused than he did annoyed. Malfoy held out the stack of books he’d been carrying, raising his eyebrows toward them in a gesture that clearly implored Harry to take them.

“No luck,” he said. He didn’t sound frustrated in the way that had been eating away at Harry. Resigned would be more accurate, like he’d expected nothing more in the first place, and a lick of anger curled through Harry at the thought that Malfoy hadn’t expected him to be able to solve this. “I’ve been through these books back to front, and there’s nothing that fits.”

Harry felt his lips curling down of their own accord, and he pressed his fingers together with enough force that he could keep himself grounded.

“Okay,” he said. He didn’t want to admit that his search had yielded the same results. ”It’s all either something that doesn’t correspond at all, or else something that’s close but slightly different. Something that wouldn’t explain the effect the mark is having on you.”

“Right,” Malfoy said, sounding like he’d been awake for years, like he’d grown used to the weariness inside him and was no longer affected by the tight press of exhaustion that tried to force him asleep. “Is that it, then? There’s nothing else we can do?”

Harry glared at him, was aware that he was glaring and tried to make sure it came across — he lowered his eyebrows and tried to pour out the anger into his stare, although he wasn’t sure if it came across. “Are you serious? It’s no wonder you’re still stuck with that mark, if you’re willing to give up after this.”

“What else is there to do?” Malfoy slumped, his legs uncurling and feet coming to rest on the floor, as though all his muscles had given out. Somehow, it felt even more vulnerable than before, and Harry hated it.

He turned inwards, to the comfort of anger and a plan. Sense, backed by the raging heat that filled him all the way up to the very roots of his hair.

“Hermione, for one,” Harry said confidently, focusing on a point over Malfoy, a stretch of blank wall. “If anybody can figure out what’s going on, she’s the one who’ll be able to understand.”

“Granger?” Malfoy asked, sounding dubious, and all of Harry’s goodwill towards him vanished in a second, in a single word.

“Yes,” he snapped, grateful in a sense for the sudden outlet. “Hermione. She has a name, and she’s bloody —”

“Calm _down,_ Potter,” Malfoy snapped right back, and the lines of his body were pulled taut again, his hand clamping down on the arm of the chair. “I didn’t say anything. I don’t have any problems with Granger.” Then they were locked in another staring contest. “Stop assuming things about me without asking. Did we not establish that I’m different now? I don’t care if you want someone to pin everything on and make into a scapegoat, I’d appreciate it if you don’t jump down my throat at every chance you get,because it does make things difficult.”

Harry breathed exclusively through his nose, not trusting himself to open his mouth. He stared at Malfoy, abashed, wondering if it came across in his expression.

“Right,” Malfoy said. “Are we going to see _Hermione_ , then?” He emphasized the word, glaring pointedly at Harry as he said it.

“Yeah,” Harry said. “Let’s go.”

He held out his arm, barely waiting for Malfoy to grab hold, and disapparated without another thought.

They reappeared just inside the Granger-Weasley flat, which meant the wards had been tailored to let him in. Somebody was home.

“Yes?” came a voice from the other room, a tone that Harry immediately recognized at Hermione’s. He took a deep breath, enjoying how sweet the air tasted.

“It’s me!” Harry called back. “Malfoy’s with me. We were wondering if we could borrow your expertise for a bit, if you aren’t too busy.”

“Yeah, yeah, come in,” she called back distractedly. Malfoy was holding himself upright again, and this time it didn’t look light, like it had earlier. Harry watched him in his periphery and at last beckoned for Malfoy to follow, making his way into the kitchen.

"Harry," Ginny said when he walked in, and for the first time in a while, Harry was able to shoot her a smile through his shock. It came more easily than usual.

Everything came more easily now — there were moments when he found himself able to smile at Malfoy now, to smile at Ginny. The business at the shop was going well, and everything in his life seemed to be clicking into place all at the same time, a puzzle he thought he’d solved before Malfoy came along and scrambled the pieces right back up.

Finally, he felt close to solving it again.

"Hi Ginny," he said cheerfully. “We can wait if you’d like, didn’t mean to interrupt.”

"No, no, I was about to leave anyways," Ginny said with a smile that actually seemed to reach her eyes this time — although it was possible that Harry’s imagination had only made it to appear that way, this new light cast over his world. Even Malfoy standing stiffly beside him, prim and proper, couldn’t dull things for him. He was standing closer than Harry anticipated, tightly wound, and for some reason Harry could almost feel the heat emanating from Malfoy's body reflected in his own. "Thanks for the tea, Hermione."

When Ginny left with one last cordial smile towards Harry, Hermione tilted her head in surprise.

"Gotten over the breakup, I see?"

Now Harry felt almost as corded as Malfoy, and he didn’t chance a glance at Malfoy’s expression. This was the last thing he wanted to discuss, and Hermione seemed to realize the source of his tension.

“Anyways, what can I help you with?"

"Sorry to interrupt if you were busy," Harry said quickly and Hermione shook him off with a laugh.

"No, no, I was just discussing a new product with Ginny, but there's plenty of time for that later."

"We were wondering about branding spells," Harry said, cutting to the chase, figuring that the faster they got this over with, the less chance for disaster. Hermione nodded, gesturing at the chairs across from her.

"Sit down, Harry, Draco." The use of his first name didn't seem to go unnoticed, but Malfoy still looked supremely uncomfortable as he sat.

"Granger," he said, voice clipped. Harry recognized that voice, the one he used when he was uncertain and trying to hide it. "I apologize for the bad start we had and everything I did when I was younger. I hope I can make it up to you."

Hermione was usually quite good at concealing her emotions, level-headed and all that, but she shot a startled glance at Harry nonetheless.

“I appreciate your apology,” Hermione said slowly, eyes still wider than usual. “What can I do for you?”

“We need to understand the magic in his mark,” Harry said. Malfoy was still sitting there poker still, something straight up his spine. His hands were folded in front of him, like a steeple. Proper, prim, something Aunt Petunia would approve of greatly.

It was so different from his usual relaxed posture when he sat in Harry’s chair, curled up into a tiny ball. Harry hadn’t realized it until now, because it was hard to see without a comparison, but Malfoy almost seemed almost… almost _comfortable_ around him.

Here, he was obviously out of his element.

“Right,” Hermione said, “Let me go get some tea.”

She bustled back into the kitchen to set on a pot of water to boil. Ron was out for the day at Auror training no doubt, and surprisingly, even that had started to leave less of a sour taste in Harry’s mouth.

He realized, with a start, that he was happy with mostly everything in his life. With an even greater jolt, he realized it had been a very long time since that had last been the case.

“You apologized,” Harry said, unable to keep out the surprise that was so evident in his voice. Malfoy merely looked back at him.

“Yes,” he said. There was a splotch of pink high on his cheekbones, easily visible against the pale of his skin. “I owed it to her.”

Harry stared at him for a second and then nodded. “Thanks,” he said finally. He was starting to realize that Malfoy had never been as simple as he thought.

“Don’t think too highly of me,” Malfoy scoffed. “I’ll find a way to mess things up soon enough, if you wait. I always manage to make a mess.”

Harry looked at him, considering.

“Not as much now that you think for yourself.”

“Think for myself?” Malfoy raised one eyebrow smoothly, like it was something he’d been able to effortlessly do since birth. “That’s your advice? You think I didn’t try, is that it? Well I really didn’t have many options to think for myself in the past.”

“I know,” Harry said, and it felt weird to be the one placating Malfoy after all this. “I wasn’t talking about that. I mean — if you don’t blindly follow people….”

“Like my father?” Malfoy asked sullenly, and Harry looked away guiltily, because that had in fact been exactly what he was thinking of. “Well, he’s out of the picture,” Malfoy mumbled. “And so is my mother, when it comes down to it.”

“Your mother —”

“I’m not talking about this,” Malfoy said and each word was enunciated with an anger Harry recognized immediately, punctuating the relative silence, split only by the clinking of dishware from the kitchen.

Then Hermione came back, holding two cups of tea. “I have treacle tart in the kitchen, if you —

“Malfoy doesn’t eat treacle tart,” Harry said immediately as he took a sip of his tea. It was only a moment later when he saw the looks out of his periphery that he realized both Hermione and Malfoy were staring at him. Hermione wih a quirked smile, Malfoy in confusion.

“How did you —?” Malfoy asked, looking straight at him, and Harry almost choked on the gulp of tea when he understood what he’d said. It had slipped out of him, an instinct, nothing more than that.

 

“I didn’t — I guessed,” he said lamely, and the hours at Hogwarts he’d spent watching Malfoy over the dinner table flashed before his eyes.

“Right,” Hermione said quietly. “Good guess.”

Harry glared at her as she pulled the books closer, and flipped through them carefully. Treasuring the books, like she always did.

“So,” she said, “You were branded in a way that destroys light magic, is that right?”

“Yeah.”

“And you can’t figure out what Voldemort did?”

Harry nodded slowly, and Malfoy gave a sharp jerk of his head beside him.

“Maybe it isn’t in the books,” Hermione said quietly. “I would be surprised if it wasn’t, to be honest. People like Voldemort would invent their own forms of magic, you know?”

“But wouldn’t he want to rely on something that couldn’t go wrong?”

“He’d find that amusing, testing weird forms of magic on human beings, woudn’t he? Like lab rats. He never saw people as fully human. Or at least, he never saw humans as worthy.”

They stared at Hermione, who shrugged, and carefully closed the book.

“We know people who’ve done it like that before, remember?” Hermione said quietly. “Snape. His book.He invented spells and potions, of course, you remember.” She was looking solely at Harry now, and Malfoy was watching them both, like he was the observer in all of this.

Harry shuddered.

“Like Sectumsempra,” Hermione continued. “That’s the kind of thing they do. Invent their own horrible spells, things that do Darke magic, unspeakable things.”

Malfoy’s gaze seared into him at the mention _Sectumsempra,_ but Harry carefully avoided his eyes and pretended he hadn’t noticed.

“Then what are we supposed to do?” Malfoy asked calmly, looking back and forth between the two of them. “How are we supposed to solve this if we don’t know what we’re up against?”

“There are a few options,” Hermione said quietly. “You can of course keep looking in books, although for once I’m pretty sure they aren’t the answer. You could go to a higher up Death Eater to see if they have any information.” She hesitated. “Like your mother.”

Malfoy stiffened at that and his face closed off, a statue once more.

“Or,” Hermione hurried on, emboldened, ignoring the stony set of his jaw, “You can keep trying things. Different forms of covering magic. See what works, what reacts, try to understand the magic through how it responds.”

She took a sip of her own tea, and shrugged.

“This has gone beyond a tattoo, really,” Malfoy said quietly when they got back to Harry’s office. Instead of sinking into the chair like usual, he hovered beside it. His right hand was clutching at his left arm, tight enough that the skin was pinched, bulging out around the grip of his fingers. “You don’t have to keep helping me. I know I’m probably taking up time for your shop, and —”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Harry snorted. “I’m not giving up until I’ve solved this stupid problem, okay? So you’d better get used to me.”

“Thank you,” Malfoy said quietly. It still sounded wrong coming from him, and it looked like he felt the same — like his mouth hadn’t been made to fit around those words. But he said it nonetheless.

“It’s not for you,” Harry said quickly, just in case Malfoy was getting the wrong idea. “I just want to solve the mystery. It isn’t for you.” 

“Got it,” Malfoy said with a bite in his voice, sour and sharp, and he took a step further away from the chair. His eyes were narrowed and he hand gripping even tighter now. “Glad you cleared that up.”

He looked away, a furrow set heavy above his eyebrows, and there was a pit of unease in Harry’s stomach that felt like bile, like it would sting his throat if he tried to speak or take something back, even though he wasn’t sure what.

“I — tomorrow?” Harry said instead. Simple, easy — not something that could be misconstrued.

“Tomorrow,” Malfoy said back with a snap, looking around his shop in a way that could almost be sarcastic, although Harry wasn’t sure how that was possible with just a look. “So you can solve your mystery.”

When Malfoy walked out the door, the unease was swimming in Harry’s stomach again, the previous joy distilled and diluted. Sloshing around deep inside of him and reminding him with every step.

Something about _tomorrow_ felt foreboding in a way he couldn’t place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEY FRIENDS! I'm so sorry it's been way longer than I said, some family stuff came up (ugh) but I'll be updating more often for real this time!


	11. Chapter 11

Malfoy didn’t show up the next day.

Harry waited longer than he probably should have on high alert, twitching upright at every tinkle of the bell and slumping back in his chair when it was merely another client, turning them away and doing his best to tune out Dean’s disapproving murmurs.

The only thing he seemed able to manage was staring at the front door, eyes hooked to the pane of glass that gave a window to the rest of the world. Red sweater. Green handbag. Brown hair. Slouching posture. He went from exhausted to angry and back again, his mood flying north to south, a compass that couldn’t — _wouldn’t —_ find the pole, stuck on a swarm of colors that weren’t Malfoy.

Dean had tried to approach him earlier about it, and it set Harry off like a match dropped into an innocent looking puddle of gasoline, just waiting for the fuel to explode. Harry had yelled, anger blazing for a full sentence before realizing there was somebody standing behind Dean, eyes blown wide. He’d barely reeled himself back in at that point, his reluctance of seeing another newspaper scandal about his madness somehow overpowering the storm inside of him.

Sometimes he barely understood himself. Sometimes he worried about what the war had done to him, and he wondered vaguely if it was a result of his near-death perhaps, or if it was because of the Horcrux that had lurked inside of him for far too many years. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting.

Because, as the seconds ticked on, anger licked through him in flashes. On and off — a broken clock that had been drowned in water, never knowing when it would glitch back on. A muggle radio, fizzling in and out as it reached the end of its range.

That’s what he was now. A broken record. A liability. You couldn’t trust him, couldn’t rely on him for anything. He couldn’t even rely on himself. Although he tried so desperately to hide it, he was out of his own control. He couldn’t trust his own brain — and at times like this, it barely even felt like his own. Why did the fact that Malfoy was missing give him the uncontrollable urge to break something? Why did it send magic crackling around him in that way that had always made Ginny retreat to a corner, in that way that made him feel like a monster. Like a time bomb.

He wasn’t even a person, and he knew it through and through, down to the depths of himself. Even Malfoy could keep his cool perfectly, after everything he’d been through, but Harry? Harry was damaged goods — a picture perfect shell to everybody in the papers, a core of rage to his friends, a question to himself.

He’d been able to convince himself only a day earlier that things were okay. Maybe it was the regularity of having a puzzle, maybe it was making amends with Malfoy, but now he saw that even that couldn’t really help him. He was beyond that. He was unhelpable, a lost cause that wasn’t worth anybody’s time in the end.

Dean walked into his office without knocking first. Perhaps he knew Harry would tell him not to come in, and he’d decided it wasn’t worth the time.

“Hey,” he said. “What’s wrong?”

“Ginny’s probably told you,” Harry spat, looking away.

“She said you get angry easily,” he said hesitantly.

“That’s an understatement.”

Dean faced his anger differently than most people did. He didn’t tiptoe or cower, and he didn’t get angry back. Instead, he waited. He waited for Harry’s fists to unclench slightly. He waited for the slight draining, for Harry to wilt a tiny bit. It took a long time — so long that Harry wasn’t sure if the clock on the wall was showing time accurately, or if the simmering magic around him was messing with it.

And Dean sat. He didn’t say a word. He didn’t mention when the quill on Harry’s desk snapped out of nowhere. He waited.

Finally, at long last, he tilted his head.

“Did something happen?”

Harry shook his head.

“Did something set it off?”

Harry took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He debated saying no — denying was the easiest route to go with anything — but he willed himself to get words out without shouting them. Slow. _Steady._

“Malfoy didn’t show up,” Harry said through a heavy breath. He closed his eyes tightly enough that it felt like individual pixels were swimming before him, eyelids collapsing in on themselves. He closed his eyes until the world felt partially gone.

“Okay,” Dean said. “Did you owl him?”

“No,” Harry said. It was sharp but at a normal volume, and he would count whatever small mercies he could get.

“Maybe you should do that.”

Harry wasn’t sure if he’d be able to write a letter out without a bottle of ink rupturing under his fingers, or tearing the parchment with the force of his mind, but he did his best. He sent off a letter with an owl, clenching his fists so hard that his whole arms were shaking, that it almost felt like he could snap his fingers.

The owl returned faster than he’d expected.

_Potter,_

_I apologize. Something came up. I must stay at the Manor today._

Harry glared down at the letter, and he could feel magic prickling against the edges of his eyelids. The light above him flickered. Or maybe it was his own vision.

This wasn’t supposed to happen — this was a problem for amateur witches and wizards. This was something that he should have in control by now, without any problems or flickering lights in his way. This shouldn’t be his life.

Harry was fuelled by an anger he’d not felt in a long time. There was something curling inside of him, and he could barely even feel the ground under his feet when he disapparated. He didn’t know where he was going — impossibly dangerous — the thought of _destination_ swirled in the back of his mind.

And then he reappeared, whirling back into the world of the living.

It was Malfoy Manor. He barely stopped to take in the full implications, because he wasn’t in his right mind — not that he had a right mind. He didn’t think about the fact that he’d apparated while barely realizing he was doing so, that he’d appeared spontaneously at Malfoy Manor. Instead, he marched inside. He ignored the feeling that coated him like oil when he walked in — a heavy substance that settled inside him and was impossible to rub off, stuck onto him like a many-layered skin.

Heavy. Dark. Heavy.

It was then that he heard the voice.

“You have to run, Draco.” It was small and desparate, the hint of a sob lurking behind her words. “He’s coming — he’s almost here, you have to —” The words were cut off with a scream, cutting, unceasing, a teakettle stuck on high. Instead of stilling him, it lurched him into action, reminiscent of his long-gone Auror days. He ran towards the source of the noise, feet pounding against the floor with the syrupy weight of darkness.

He burst through another door, wand aloft, expecting to find something horrifying — pools of blood perhaps, a death eater, a cloaked figure attacking…but that wasn’t what he found.

Instead there was Narcissa Malfoy, curled up on the floor in pajamas that dwarfed her spindly frame, cradling her head in her arms, mouth gaping open in a scream that held nothing back. Malfoy was kneeling on the floor next to her.

Now — _now_ Harry was frozen, mouth agape, wand falling to the wayside. He hadn’t been trained for this. He wasn’t prepared.

“Malfoy?” he asked before he could help it. His anger wasn’t forgotten. It wasn’t something he could banish away now that it had started, but it had been pushed to the side for the moment.

Malfoy’s head jerked up, turning to look at him, and he stumbled to his feet just as quickly. Harry could only watch. There was a tear, or perhaps a drop of sweat, trickling slowly down his face. With a flick of his wand, the scream abruptly stopped — her mouth stretched in a silent yell.

The house was eerily quiet. Dampened.

Malfoy stared back at him. There was anger. Harry could recognize that with ease, because it was barely an emotion to him anymore. He saw himself reflected in Malfoy’s eyes, in the crease above his eyebrows, in the vibrating of his hands and the shift in magic.

“Go,” Malfoy said. It was one word, one shaking syllable, so low and cold and trembling that it made Harry startle in response. “Get the fuck away from here.” Each word wavered in itself, the syllables tenuous and uncertain.

Harry stared for one last second at the silent scream and disapparated.

A moment later he was back in the tattoo shop. He dropped into Malfoy’s armchair — _detested_ that he thought of it as Malfoy’s — and quickly glanced around him as though someone might be watching.

Nobody was there, of course. Dean must have gone back to work.

Harry dropped his head onto the desk, not expecting the thump that rang hollow through the room, but relishing the throb in his head. He was near certain that Narcissa was something he couldn’t tell anyone about. This had to stay secret. It felt different than the mark — this secret wasn’t calm and careful, this one was desperate, a silent-scream, something he shouldn’t have learned in the first place.

He turned back to his desk and picked up a file, feeling robotic in his movements and unsure how to stop it. Being a robot would be easier, he mused.

He couldn’t get it out of his head — he was used to this, to memories that intruded upon what his mind was supposed to be. Memories from the war that he used to mask with the wall of simmering anger. Anger was good for that, he knew.

And now he had more memories to add to his collection, memories of a gaping scream, of a tear he must have imagined.

It was the tear most of all that shook him. Not because of what it _was,_ exactly. He knew tears painfully well. Not because Malfoy was a man, or because people said men weren’t supposed to cry. Neville, Dean, himself — tears, war, people, they all blended into one.

Not even because it was _Malfoy_ , who looked so untouchable. He knew Malfoy could cry. He’d seen it himself, sixth year.

It was the tear, because it meant Malfoy cared about someone who wasn’t himself. That was something he hadn’t expected. Another piece of Malfoy that fit into Human, that clicked into place and made him seem strangely real.

He wondered what had happened to Narcissa to make her break. Narcissa was the strongest of most, sticking through the war at the Dark Lord’s side, fearing for herself, for her husband and son, standing up to the Dark Lord. Out of all people, Harry was surprised she’d broken. He wouldn’t have expected it, and he still wasn’t entirely certain that he believed it.

It went to show, he thought to himself. It made him feel better about the pit he was hiding inside of him. It made him able to breathe slightly easier, as though he wasn’t as crazy as he thought he might be. He’d avoided the fate Narcissa had befallen. He didn’t have the same screaming madness that had to be silenced with magic, shut down, locked away inside a house and hidden from the rest of the world.

And then his thoughts flickered back to Malfoy again. He wondered if Malfoy would be coming back to Skin Deep.

Harry apparated straight to the Granger-Weasley house that night. Hermione seemed to know immediately that something was wrong. She always knew more than other people, and she seemed to have a sense for emotions that Harry avoided.

“What do you need?” she asked as soon as she saw him standing there. It was something Harry was immensely greatful for, a question she’d taken to using after the war. _What do you need_ skipped over the question of “do you want to talk” to which the answer was always no, and had little to do with emotions, which was something Harry never wanted to discuss. It was simple, factual, and to the point. What do you need?

“I need to find the answer to the Mark.” Harry stalked into the kitchen and slammed a pile of books on the table, ones he hadn’t managed to look through yet. “As soon as possible. I don’t care if it isn’t in the books, I need to find an answer to this.”

“Right,” Hermione said. She took a seat next to him on the couch. “I have to finish these forms, and I have to send an owl, but I’ll be right with you.”

Harry didn’t answer, but Hermione didn’t seem to mind. She was accustomed to his anger — it was something that made Harry wince, because he felt awful that she had to get used to his outbursts when she was dealing with enough herself.

He flipped open a book faster than necessary, tearing the page at the bottom, too worked up to repair it with magic. He skimmed pages, eyes darting over words that he had to stare at for a second each if he wanted them not to blend together, another second if he wanted them to register in his mind.

Hermione slid in next to him some time later. He wasn’t sure how long, because time felt like it was all blending together. She put a cup of tea in front of him and tapped the page of his book to get his attention. He nodded momentarily.

“So,” Hermione said, settling in and waving her wand to set a blanket of warmth over them in that way that only she could accomplish perfectly. “We’re looking for a marking spell. Dark magic.”

“Yeah,” Harry said. They flipped through books side by side, words murmured between them quietly. It felt warm — it felt like home, and if he closed his eyes for a minute, it could be his home. He could forget that it was no longer the three of them in the Gryffindor Common Room, and he could forget that it was RonAndHermione on one side and him on the other. He could forget that everything had changed completely.

He scratched notes out as he went, words that he wasn’t sure would make sense in the morning but made sense to him now, notes after notes after notes.

He fell asleep like that, writing away at parchment, ink dotting his fingers in a way that made him think amusedly through his lingering haze of exhaustion of a tattoo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just burned my feet really badly so I can't walk and I'm now on a writing spree :) Just so you know, all your wonderful comments make my day, I can't even express how thankful I am for all of you!!


	12. Chapter 12

His sleep-wrought predictions turned out to be correct. Not only did Malfoy fail to show up to Skin Deep the next day, but the wards against the Manor were carefully re-tailored to let nobody through, and there wasn’t so much as a way to get messages through to him. He was boxed into his own Manor, like Lucius was stuck in Azkaban and Harry was trapped in his own brain.

Harry tried to ignore it. He had pages of notes that were sprawling and tilted unevenly over the parchment, the line ends trailing in all directions like a map that lead to nowhere.

He was dulled by sleep, the anger softer than usual, his magic hazy instead of crackling. It was more like a dull throb. Fuzzy, like the corners of his vision — flickering, uneven as he fought to keep his eyes open. He refused to take a potion to keep him awake, because it would only make him more tired later on.

“Dean,” he said, a few minutes after Malfoy usually arrived. Malfoy was exceptionally punctual, and Harry was determined not to dwell on his absence like he had before. He was miles behind on work, stacks of paper that Dean wasn’t asking him about because that’s how he worked — he left Harry to deal with things, like he trusted him to do right.

“Yeah?”

“I’m sorry I’m so far behind on tattoo designs, I’ve been completely occupied with Malfoy’s case.”

“I know. When can you get them to me?” Dean asked simply.

“By the end of today,” Harry said — deadlines focused him, pushed everything else away. Especially ambitious deadlines that were near impossible to accomplish. He could sink into his work, an almost-trance with the way magic swum around him and the way he plucked at the threads almost elegantly — the only time he ever felt elegant. It was a whole new world, unlike the sweaty anger and screaming spells of an Auror. Instead it was silent, but in another way it was humming around him, subtle shifts in the air that were invisible to everyone else. But to him, they were there loud and clear.

It was a muted world — it was like stepping into the dark after living so long in the daytime. Everyone else was immune to the charms within the darkness, and they were too impatient to wait. But Harry waited while his eyes adjusted and a whole new world was revealed to him out of nothingness. A place where he knew all the secrets. A place — a place of his own.

Soon, the dark was like light, and it was no longer more difficult to discern. It was just as easy as living in the light. Cathartic, almost.

He didn’t know the passing time, enshrouded in bits of magic like he was. He didn’t worry about emotions — not that he ever did, but it was easier to ignore. He didn’t once think about Malfoy, refused to worry about anything else in the world.

He just focused on tattoos, on ways to weave spells into the ink and conserve the magic they took up. He created spells. Spells, he’d learned, had nothing to do with words in the same way they had nothing to do with wands. It was merely a way to simplify magic for the common person.

In reality, magic was thrumming through them, behind everything. You only had to know how to access it. And accessing it was Harry’s expertise.

“Harry?”

The word was all it took. It broke through the shell that had enveloped him, cracking his oblivion to the rest of the world.

“Yeah?” He yawned, and exhaustion slammed into him, a change so swift that he slumped in his chair against his will. He looked around him, at the soft shadows that were cooler colors than one usually saw in the daytime. Purple, deep blue. Was it night already?

“It’s getting late, time to close up shop for the day.”

“I—” Harry coughed and nodded. “Right. I’ve finished all these, ready to test.” He handed a stack of files to Dean, surprised at the weight in his hand.

“All these?” Dean asked, sounding surprised as he looked down at the stack now resting in his hand.

“Yeah. Are we way past any deadlines? Did I mess anything up for you? I’m sorry Dean, I really am, I didn’t mean to get so behind. I got locked in on this one problem, and — well.”

“You’re fine,” Dean said reassuringly. “There’s long enough of a line for tattoos with already developed charms, and these people knew they’d have to wait. Plus, all these people seem willing to wait years to say they’ve gotten a tattoo developed by the Famous Savior Harry Po—”

“Shut up,” Harry cut him off, laughing. “Shut up, please. Just take the stupid files.”

Dean laughed and headed out of the office with Harry close on his heels, at just enough of a distance that he still felt oddly wrapped up in his comforting bubble of magic.

“So, did you finish the Malfoy case then?” Dean asked in a conspiratorial tone. “Figure out a tattoo?”

“Not yet,” Harry said with a sigh. “We’re kind of at odds, for the moment. It was really too much to wish for, that Malfoy and I would get along for the whole time.”

“Ah,” Dean said with a small noise in the back of his throat. “Well. If he ever decides to come back, let him know we have a time slot set aside specially for him.”

“I’ll do that,” Harry said in a small voice, knowing he wouldn’t, because there was no way for him to get through to Malfoy anyway. “Thanks.”

“Don’t thank me,” Dean yawned. “See you tomorrow, early then? Fridays are always the busiest.”

“You’ve got it,” Harry said with a sharp nod. “Early. Of course.”

He went home to his flat. It was dingy, and it looked even more so every second he stared at it — but he couldn’t bring himself to intrude on Ron and Hermione’s hospitality for another night, especially when he was a less than savory guest. There were papers strewn across the ground, and somehow stepping into it didn’t give him the same feeling he got when he stepped into his office. Instead, he shied away from the mess and took a deep breath, closing his eyes momentarily and relishing the slight relief. But then he realized what he was doing. There was no time to take breaks from this. He had work to be doing.

He picked his way across the floor slowly, not caring much if he happened to step on anything, because there wasn’t much of value in his flat. There wasn’t much of anything that had value to him, in his flat or not.

He finally perched himself on his bed, a stack of books lying heavy next to him, and he heaved a sigh that seemed to dredge up the depths of everything, from his anger to Malfoy to the bottom of his soul.

And then he closed his eyes for one second more, perched himself on his bed, and started to work. He sometimes got into this mode, where hours blended into each other and he no longer understood the concept of time. He was slipping through book after book with a fervor he’d never had in school, not when studying for the O.W.L.S, not for anything. It was merely him, books, and a puzzle that he was more-than-determined to solve.

The light through the windows could have been streetlights, or maybe the sun, because Harry didn’t know the difference anymore. It blended together, a yellow aura that only mattered because it helped him see his research better.

Hours slipped by. He didn’t sleep for a second, or maybe he did and he didn’t realize it, maybe he slipped off into a fevered passion while he was in the midst of research, writing lines in his sleep and connecting things that were never meant to be connected. All he knew was that when his alarm went off, he hit the sleep button without remembering what sleep was and without registering the significance until a few moments later.

He gathered his papers in hand and disapparated from his house straight to the shop. He wasn’t sure how he managed it when his mind was still swimming with thoughts of marks. He didn’t say hi to Dean when he strode into the shop. He didn’t say a word to anybody at all, too focused was he on the papers still clutched tight in his hands.

He sat himself down at his desk and spread the papers out in front of him, a timeline, a map that _had_ to be leading somewhere.

There was a knock on the doorframe.

“What,” Harry said, too distracted to form a question or to look up.

“You okay?” It was Dean, standing there and holding out a coffee.

“Fine, fine,” Harry said. “I’ll have today’s designs on your desk by noon, if that works. Customer appointments to discuss those start Monday, is that right?”

“Yeah,” Dean said slowly. “You sure everything’s alright?”

“Fine,” Harry said again with a smile, lips pressed tight together. He didn’t have time to waste, to peel his eyes away from the page. Every second was one he could be, _should_ be using. “Thanks for the coffee.”

“No problem,” Dean said, setting it down on the edge of Harry’s desk and slowly stepping out of the room. “Call if you need anything, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Harry said. He wasn’t quite sure what he was agreeing to at the moment, but it didn’t seem to matter particularly.

The second Dean left, Harry waved his hand at the door. The door shut. When he was in these states, he never needed his wand to do spells. He was practically buzzing with magic, shutting everything else out. It was almost like his fits of rage, but this time it was _energy,_ this time it was his determination to solve this task. To bring Malfoy the answer no matter how much he tried to shut Harry out, because being shut out was one thing he couldn’t stand for.

He stared down at his papers, at a list of spells scratched out in his own handwriting, and realized with a jolt what he’d done. These were spells he hadn’t read in books — these weren’t copies of possible incantations, brands he’d picked up in his research.

These were _new_ spells.

Harry stared. He couldn’t drag his eyes away. They were _dark_ — darker than he could have imagined himself creating, some of them complex, some of them incorporating magic that he barely dared dream about. It was the kind of thing that he would have balked at during school. If somebody had created these spells, he would’ve run straight to Dumbledore. More than that, he would run _away,_ because this was the kind of thing that set off alarm bells from miles away.

He stared down at it in shock.

And then horror.

He’d known there was something wrong with him. Some hurricane that had erupted inside of him and tilted his head out of order, wreaking havoc with an uncontrollable anger that didn’t only mess with his mood but his magic as well.

But now, he knew it was more. There was something _dark_ inside him. Something he might never be able to get rid of. He remembered years ago, when he’d been worried he was like Voldemort. Worried he would’ve — to quote the sorting hat — “Done well in Slytherin.”

He remembered Dumbledore’s placating words when he’d worried about it. But comforting was something he’d been so very good at, hadn’t it, twisting words to twist people’s convictions towards himself. He wondered if that’s all they’d been. Sugar-coated whispers, for a purpose, always for a purpose.

Harry wondered if there was something in him, deep down, that was dark. Something dark that had created branding spells requiring burned flesh and sacrificed lives.

He stared at the list, and a certainty loomed up at him. He’d done this. He’d created _this._ He was no better than Malfoy, no better than Snape, no better than any of the people before him who’d been lured in and entranced with dark magic. Or maybe he was going insane. Maybe he was on track to being like Narcissa Malfoy.

There was panic welling up inside him — a feeling other than anger, one he didn’t know what to do with. So he crumpled in on himself and lashed out, let the familiar all consuming fire take over. He couldn’t control himself. He couldn’t control his magic. He couldn’t control anything at all.

He was _out_ of control, _out_ of patience, _out_ of a life when all things were considered. He was falling apart at seams that seemed like they must have been fake in the first place. He was crumpling, dissolving, vanishing into nothingness. He was dark. He was _evil_. He shouldn’t be here. The office was a torrent around him, anger personified, papers and books and leftover quills that were being ripped to shreds before his eyes.

“Harry!”

There was a yell from the doorway that broke through to him. It was Dean, staring at the wreckage of his office, the papers that were strewn everywhere, Harry who must have looked crazed.

“Dean,” Harry said meekly.

“What happened?”

Harry hunched his shoulders, trying to hide himself. “

“I got mad.”

Dean sighed quietly. “You can’t let this happen again,” he said. “You seemed to be getting better after what happened with Ginny, but I’m worried that this job might be too stressful for you. I’m giving you a week off to get control of yourself before I consider letting you back, okay? You have to take care of yourself Harry. I advise you see a mind healer.”

“But…” Harry just stared at Dean, not entirely sure what he’d been intending to argue. It had been good, he thought distantly. It had been smart.

“I’ll collect your…things,” Dean said, looking around at the wreckage that littered the floor. “And I’ll be fine dealing with clients on my own. I have enough backup spells, plus the ones you gave me yesterday. And I’m not a bad hand at magic myself.”

Harry stared at him. He knew it was for the best — he couldn’t allow himself to stay here, to endanger the poor people that came into his shop. Unsuspecting. Not knowing what he truly was.

“Okay,” he said quietly. He reached behind him. He grabbed the piece of paper, the list of dark spells that had come somewhere from within him, from depths of his mind that he still wanted to pretend didn’t exist no matter how much they screamed back at him that they very much did. He crumpled it into his fist.

He stared at the door.

And he disapparated.

The first thing he did when he got back to his flat was to take stock of things. His mind was still running fast enough that he felt off-balance, dizzy from the ideas and from the possibilities that zapped through him at a speed that shouldn’t have been possible. He looked around the flat.

He had work to be doing. The flat was almost as bad as his office had been after the outburst. He knew he had to calm himself, to stunt the magic that wanted an outlet so badly. He rummaged through his cupboard, hands shaking, pulling out a potion that he hadn’t used since just after the war, when his anger — his _darkness,_ he corrected himself — had been at its worst. He drank it back, feeling the calm that rushed through him.

It wasn’t good to be reliant on these, his past mind healer told him, because they could be very addictive if taken in the wrong quantities. Harry didn’t care, because now his hands were still, and his mind was already buzzing.

This wasn’t a dose too high. This was okay. He was okay. He’d had a bad day, that was all — a relapse was normal every now and then. Things would be okay, he told himself, because he would be okay.

He’d solve this mystery, Malfoy would get his tattoo, he’d shut the darkness back inside of him where it could never get out of him again, and his life would go back to the normal that he’d never had a chance to experience in the first place.

Everything would be okay if he could only understand this spell.

So he sat down at his desk, pulled a piece of parchment towards him, and got to work.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm having way too much fun with this story :) I'm so curious as to where it's gonna end up, because at the moment I have NO clue


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!! I'm so sorry it's been forever since I last updated! I've already written the entire thing because I realized it's easier to have a draft first before posting, so now I just need to edit. Get ready for a lot of chapters! (Somehow it got really long and I take no responsibility)

Maybe Harry should have realized sooner that he was slipping. Maybe it was obvious, if he’d only had the energy to look closer and delve into the tangled threads that connected his mind tenuously to his life. Maybe it was something he could’ve stopped, but as it was, he was far to focused on his work.

Sleep fell to the wayside, eating fell to the wayside — moving from his _desk_ fell to the wayside. His hand couldn’t stop scratching out notes. He’d turned into a machine, a clock, something destined to tick away at the same task for close to an eternity.

He wasn’t sure how many hours had passed, how many days. It could have been months for all he knew, but there was one singular moment when something clicked in his brain. 

All he knew was that he disapparated in a blur and reapparated at Malfoy Manor a minute later. All he could process was that somehow in his madness he’d burst through the wards, that he was storming into the Manor and waving a piece of paper in front of him. 

He didn’t consider how he might look, with bags under his eyes the colors of a seeping bruise, hair messier than usual and insanity a facet of his person. 

All he could think about was getting to Malfoy.

“Malfoy! Malfoy I might have an answer!”

He burst through a door, met with wide grey eyes that somehow reflected a mixture of horror and concern back at him. Why would Malfoy be worried? He had _answers_.

“Potter?” It was hesitant, something that didn’t fit Malfoy, and Harry had no idea why he would look so taken aback. Didn’t he understand that everything was _okay_ now? 

“The mark!” Harry said. The world was tilting slightly in front of him and blurring, his magic bleeding around the edges, and he couldn’t tell what was happening except that he had something to give Malfoy. “I have — I have…” 

The next thing he knew, everything vanished, his words torn from him as he dropped into a irreversible blackness. 

He woke later in a hospital bed. He knew it was a hospital from the cloying smell of potions that always brought him back to Snape, and he could hear that it was a hospital from the low murmur of worry. He opened his eyes — his eyelids felt heavy, scratching against his eyes as he pried them open, like there was cotton stuffed in places it shouldn’t be, steel wool that was horribly pressing against him.

It was a moment before he could see again, before he could make out the soft shadows and shapes of the hospital room, before he could turn his head and flex the tips of his fingers. There was somebody sitting next to him in a chair, curled up, their breathing too even and deep for them to be awake.

But it wasn’t a figure he recognized immediately — not the long and gangly form of Ron, not Hermione, who slept alert. 

After a moment’s look, he realized it was someone else.

“Malfoy?” Harry croaked out, his voice as scratched as the insides of his eyelids. “’S’that you?””

The figure stirred, eyes flickering open to meet Harry’s. Or at least, that’s what it looked like from within the darkness.

Malfoy waved his wand in a small loop, a red light appearing at the tip, and he spoke into it. “He’s awake. Can you send a nurse?” It wasn’t urgent like you usually heard in a hospital when someone awoke, needing people to get there as soon as possible.

Instead, it was sad. Sad and worried. Not pity. Just...sad

“What are you — what am _I_ doing here?” Harry croaked out, trying to struggle upright and look around him. His neck felt stiff, like he’d slept on it in all the wrong places, and the hospital felt like it was suppressing him.

“You came to the Manor and passed out,” Malfoy said quietly. “The nurse said you hadn’t slept or eaten in days, and you were an absolute mess. Your magic was all over the place.”

Harry took a deep breath and let it out. 

“You’re better now, they gave you all kinds of potions. What happened, Potter? What were you doing?”

Harry let his head fall back onto the pillow. It was unusually soft for a hospital pillow, the kind that enveloped his head and made him feel like he was floating. Like he could fall asleep right this second and never wake up again, drift into a sky where he didn’t have to worry about the reality of this place. He closed his eyes, felt them watering under the scratching of his eyelids.

He didn’t answer Malfoy, because he didn’t have any answers.

A nurse bustled into the room, mixing potions and handing them to him, bustling around the bed with advice and other potions, spells that curled around him and sent puffs of light. Malfoy sat next to the bed the entire time, looking at him with a sad kind of curiosity.

“Stop looking at me like that,” Harry muttered. It wasn’t pity, but it was almost as bad, and he was exhausted of being looked at in varying degrees of that same expression.

“Sorry,” Malfoy said quickly, and the word still sounded strange on his tongue. “I guess even the hero isn’t perfect.”

Harry laughed dryly into his pillow as the nurse bustled back out of the room and said she’d return shortly. 

“No,” Harry said. “I guess not.”

“What happened then?” Malfoy asked, and it was a moment later that Harry realized what was different about this whole situation, with his brain still muddled from a variety of potions. Malfoy was _talking_ to him. He was no longer shut away in his Manor without a single word to give away where he was. He realized that Malfoy was no longer ignoring him.

“I dunno,” Harry said vaguely, looking away and trying not to make eye contact, because he didn’t want to discuss his shortcomings at the moment. He was perfectly content with never talking about any of this.

“You didn’t sleep at all. Dean came in and said he relieved you of duty from the shop because you destroyed your office.”

“Might have done,” Harry said with another dry laugh. It was the kind of thing that had probably been building for a while, the kind of thing that had only needed a tiny push to snap him.

“Wait until the papers get wind of this,” Malfoy said, and he was smirking at Harry. “Boy Genius stuck in hospital because he can’t control himself.”

“You’re lucky I’m not supposed to move, otherwise I would punch you right now,” Harry said, but he was too tired to even wonder if that was true. There was something about the way Malfoy had said it that seemed almost teasing. Not scathing, not harsh — just making fun of him in the kind of way that felt familiar _,_ and Harry liked that. It wasn’t Hermione’s pity. It was more like Ron.

“Right,” Malfoy said, “You’re a mess, you know that?”

“What happened to your mother?” Harry was tired of beating around the bush. He’d never been especially good at subtlety. Maybe it was something to do with the Gryffindor inside of him that always tried to beat right through things, but he didn’t see any point in tiptoeing around it when it was already hanging right there.

“What the fuck were you doing at my house.” Malfoy said it just as pointedly, in a way that clearly said he wasn’t going to answer Harry’s question until he returned the favor. “Why would you follow me, when I didn’t show up? That’s _creepy,_ Potter. That’s a little over the top.”

Harry sighed and looked down. He didn’t know how to answer that. He knew, distantly, that it had been out of line, but he didn’t want to dwell on that for much longer.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” he blurted out instead. “My mind is messed up, and I’m not quite sure why I’m doing anything now.” He paused. “But Narcissa?”

Malfoy sighed too and looked away. 

“Potter,” he said. “We aren’t discussing my mother, is that clear?”

“Clear,” Harry said quietly. “Did the nurse say when I could leave this place?” He struggled up into a sitting position and Malfoy looked at him disapprovingly again.

“Are you going to end up back here in a few days because you’ve done the same thing to yourself?” He asked, narrowing his eyes and leaning back in the chair. “Are you going to stop destroying yourself if you leave?”

“I was just trying to figure out the mark,” Harry muttered, looking away. “That’s all. I got caught up in my research.”

Malfoy gaped at him incredulously. “What?” he asked, staring, unable to tear his eyes away. “Potter, for Merlin’s sake! It doesn’t even matter. Stop trying to figure it out at the expense of your health!”

Harry wouldn’t look at him.

“I’m going to find somebody else to work on this,” Malfoy said firmly. “You obviously can’t handle it.”

“That’s no use,” came a third voice from the door. It was Hermione, looking at him in a disapproving way that was eerily reminiscent of the way he imagined Mrs. Weasley would be looking at him if she was here. She rolled her eyes and walked over to stand next to Harry, rubbing a hand over her face. “He’s not going to give up on that case now, are you?” She directed the last part towards Harry, eyebrows raised in a question to which she already knew the answer.

Harry shrugged sheepishly.

“You’re an idiot,” Hermione continued. “And Draco, he’s a part of this now, so let’s just try to figure it out."

 

* * *

 

Harry was out of the hospital the next day. He went back to working at Skin Deep immediately, with strict hours and orders as to when he was supposed to go to sleep, with a timer set to his wand. He had a multitude of potions for sleep and regenerating the same magical power that he’d been capable of before the incident. 

In the meantime, he and Malfoy were hard at work.

“Okay,” Harry said. “While I was researching, I discovered this.” He pushed the torn piece of paper over to Malfoy, smudged with frantic fingerprints, the ink trailing off one end of the page. “It talked about dark magic in your blood, and if you add someone else’s blood with _light_ magic, it can help to balance it out. To counteract it, in a way.”

“You want to put your blood into me,” Malfoy said shortly, catching on quicker than Harry had expected. “Really, Potter?”

Harry ignored how skeptical he was.

“We can also try muggle tattoos. It was Hermione’s idea actually. We’ve been so wrapped up in using _light_ magic that we never considered using something without magic. It might make the mark more difficult to interact with it.”

“Okay,” Malfoy said slowly. “That’s better.”

“Or,” Harry said after a pause. “We can attempt a growing tattoo. It’s something that starts small and slowly expands to over the mark, that way we can pinpoint exactly when it goes wrong.”

“Right.” Malfoy looked down at his arm, the Dark Mark still so horribly black against his skin, a brand that he wanted to get rid of. Harry looked at it then and wondered how he’d been so dense. He wondered why he continued to hold this _stupid_ grudge against Malfoy, because in the face of everything that had happened, teasing was ridiculously small. Malfoy was older. Malfoy was different. Malfoy had been through hell and back like himself, and Harry didn’t have a right to interrogate him.

“Which one do you want?” Harry asked, feeling strangely mollified. “Out of those options.”

“Er —” Malfoy hesitated. “The muggle one.”

“The muggle one? Right, let me go talk to Dean, I’ll be back.”

And Harry stepped outside the room, trying to ignore everything that still clung to him from before, the paper of dark spells that he’d written, the way Malfoy had read the book of Dark Magic. Harry wondered if it was human nature to be fascinated with those among the dark, and he wondered if he and Malfoy were far more alike than he’d originally anticipated. He wasn’t sure he wanted to think about that.

“Hey Dean,” Harry said, leaning on the edge of the doorway. “Do you have time to draw up a tattoo design for Malfoy? Non-magical, we’re trying something new.”

Dean appeared to mull it over before he shook his head slowly. “Sorry. I have so much to do at the moment I can’t really take it on. Do you think you could draw something up? Start with his mark and then build off it?”

“I don’t —” Harry broke. It was a war inside his brain, a tug-of-war with the rope stuck dead center, two sides pulling as hard as they could.

On one hand, the last thing he wanted to do was to draw.

On the other, the opportunity to figure out the tattoo was niggling at the back of his mind, ever-present, and he had to pull it before it drove him over the edge again.

So he stalked back to his office, pulled out a notepad, and turned back to Malfoy.

“What kind of design do you want?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're reading this, you're awesome and I love you!!


	14. Chapter 14

The second Harry pressed his pencil to the paper every muscle in his body locked up, like he was a toddler again and hadn’t yet figured how moving worked. His neck, arms, legs — even his fingers froze, determined to stop him from drawing. Harry did his best to breathe through it, to think _rationally._ Drawing a picture would do him no harm, and it was ridiculous to be afraid of it. There was no reason for this to freeze him in his tracks when he’d faced down Voldemort too many times to count.

“Are you okay?” Malfoy asked with a frown that looked mostly of concern, touching down the corners of his mouth. Harry felt a weird curl inside of him at the words, almost like Malfoy genuinely cared. He knew better, of course. He was only worried because he wanted to cover his mark.

“Fine,” Harry said, matching the frown, but his was all frustration. “I used to draw when I was younger, but I’m not good at it now. Dean’s just busy so I have to attempt this.”

“That’s fine,” Malfoy said with a grimace that didn’t have anything to do with Harry’s drawing ability — he could tell because Malfoy was still staring down at his forearm with disgust. “Anything you can do that will cover it, that’s all I need.”

Harry followed his gaze to the mark.

“Would you do things differently if you could go back?”

Malfoy looked helpless. He stared at the mark for a moment too long, and when he looked back up at Harry it was like he’d given up, all fight gone from every tense plane of his body.

“I’m not sure what I’d change,” he said finally. “I wouldn’t let my family die. I wouldn’t want to die either, even though it sounds rather appealing sometimes. I couldn’t stand up to Voldemort, because you know what happens if you stand up to him. None of us were strong enough. I’m not strong enough.” He faltered. “What would you do in my place?”

Harry looked at him for a long second, and he thought back to when Voldemort had branded Malfoy, to the excruciating screams that Harry could still hear, like his ears remembered the cry.

“I don’t know,” he said honestly.

“If your family was at stake?” Malfoy asked, and then a second later, he hurried to take it back. “I mean — shit, Potter, I didn’t… “

“Don’t apologize.” Harry smiled faintly. “If my friends were at stake, I’d probably do anything I could to keep them safe. I don’t know if you did the wrong thing. I don’t know…I don’t think there’s a _wrong_ or _right._ There’s too much nuance in the world for that. You did what you thought you had to do.”

Malfoy scoffed at his arm. He flexed it in Harry’s direction.

“This doesn’t feel noble.”

“Neither does this,” Harry said, gesturing to his own scar.

“But you never want to cover that up, do you?” Malfoy asked, as though he already knew the answer, but Harry turned to him with surprise.

“You’re kidding.”

“What?”

“Malfoy, a day hasn’t gone by where I’ve been glad of this scar. I want it gone more than anything in the world and I’d lose it in a heartbeat if I could.I didn’t get it for doing anything heroic. All it does is turn me into an object — same as yours, really. I use concealment charms for most everything now. Every time I go out.”

Malfoy gawped at him, and Harry had this sudden feeling that they really _didn’t_ understand each other.

“You mean you don’t enjoy being famous anymore? You don’t love the attention like at Hogwarts?”

Harry was the ne gaping now, and he leaned back on his hands even though the pressure on his wrists felt like too much. He stared at Malfoy, unsure if Malfoy actually believed the things coming out of his mouth.

“Like at Hogwarts? Hold on Malfoy, do you think I _liked_ being Harry Potter?”

Malfoy was staring at him wide-eyed, leaning back in his chair. They were both leaning away from each other, as though they couldn’t quite believe what the other was saying, as though only distance would allow them to see the bigger picture and figure out what was happening..

“You were the center of everything,” Malfoy insisted. “Who wouldn’t want that?”

“Do you enjoy having people glare at you in the streets and write articles about you that aren’t true and — and — I don’t know Malfoy, do you really think that’s fun? If you did, why would you cover your stupid mark?”

“That’s completely different! People worship you. They love you. It’s the opposite for me.”

“It’s just as bad,” Harry sighed. “Trust me. I wish more than anything that I had a normal life. That’s why I like this place so much, because we can turn away whoever we went when we have too many customers. In other words, when I have a ponce from school taking up all my time, I continue to tolerate his presence so I don’t have to worry about a million people begging for a tattoo of my signature.”

Malfoy snorted, and it broke some glass bubble that had been between them. Just like that, things were back to normal. 

“Right,” he said. “So. Drawing. Can you do it?”

Harry shrugged. He stared down at the paper. It was so _blank_. Malfoy grabbed the pencil from his hand, and before Harry could protest, he drew a huge scribble across the page, lines where the contour meant nothing and the pressure of his strokes were horribly uneven.

“What —?”

“Now you can’t mess up,” Malfoy grinned. “It’s already messed up. I did it for you.”

“Wow,” Harry said sarcastically. “Thanks.” He grabbed the pencil back from Malfoy, pressed it to the paper, and began to draw.

In a flash, he was back in his cupboard. For a second he thought he was _actually_ there, because the memories overwhelmed him so strongly that he could see the dust swirling around him and spiders hanging from the ceiling, slowly spinning their webs, webs that Harry would have to see through to their completion. Because he was stuck here and he would probably _always_ be, perhaps even when he turned eighteen and should be leaving the house. Maybe he would have to watch a million spiders spin their webs in a painstakingly pointless process. He could smell the cupboard too — the mold that even Aunt Petunia refused to touch. 

Every stroke he drew with the pencil was a line in the dirt on the floor, another story he made for himself. A world of magic before he knew magic existed, a compilation of all the strange dreams he’d had and all the books about fantasy worlds that he’d devoured hiding away in the corner of the school library, magic that was ever so strictly forbidden outside the doors of his closet.

He felt his hand shaking and closed his eyes, trying to will away the memories, but that made it worse. _Ten_ times worse. Now everything around him was black like the cupboard, only a few slats of light under his eyelids from the grate in the door. Harry couldn’t stand it, as he drew line after line after line, dragging his finger through the dust and bringing a whole new picture into existence.

“Harry!” 

_There was Aunt Petunia._ Harry swiped across the page, needing the pictures to disappear before she saw. If she saw, it would mean more punishment — time in his cupboard, inevitably, locked away with nothing for company but the dust sprawling around him.

“Harry!” It was sharper. More masculine. Not Aunt Petunia. “Potter, are you okay?”

Harry jerked. The image before his eyes faded, and now he could feel warm fingers on his arm, trying to steady him as well as they could. 

“Malfoy,” Harry gasped out, barely realizing that Malfoy had used his first name, too befuddled to return the favor. He looked down at his fingers — they were stained black with graphite from his pencil, an eerie facsimile of Malfoy’s mark. The paper he’d been drawing on had a long swipe through it, as though he’d tried to destroy whatever he’d been drawing.

“What happened?” Malfoy said. He sounded worried, like at a moment’s notice he might have to call for Saint Mungos, like Harry might be falling apart at the seams. Harry shared the same worries, when he thought about it.

“I’m fine,” Harry groaned, dropping his face into his hands, forgetting that there was the remains of his pencil smeared across them. When he looked up, Malfoy’s face quirked, as though he was trying to hold back a smile because it wasn’t the appropriate time, but Harry could tell it was difficult.

“What?” he asked impatiently.

“You — you have marks,” Malfoy smirked, and he stood up to walk over to where Harry was sat on his desk, standing just in front of his hanging legs. One step closer and they would be touching. Harry had no idea why that thought gave him chills.

“What?” he asked again, distracted this time, somehow unable to focus on anything in the physical world except for the body in front of him..

“Pencil,” Malfoy whispered, and he reached up one finger to Harry’s forehead, swiping away the markings that ran across his face. Harry swallowed, and he hoped it wasn’t noticeable that there was turmoil wracking his body.

He was touch starved, he told himself. That’s why he’d reacted so strongly. Malfoy was smiling at him. It looked so soft. He was exactly as close as he’d been a moment ago, but somehow he felt closer, a smudge of grey on his finger.

Harry cleared his throat and slipped off the desk, not willing to even consider half the things that crossed his mind. It was merely the proximity to someone he’d considered an enemy for so long that was affecting him, and he didn’t want to be distracted.

“Right,” he said awkwardly, swiping his own hand across his face and not really caring if he got it all off, because Malfoy was still staring at him in that indecipherable way, and Harry couldn’t stop swallowing,the sound feeling so loud that it made him want to curl up in his cupboard. “I — sorry about the drawing. I’m not very good at it, maybe we should wait until Dean is done with this group of designs. He can help. It’ll look better, anyway.”

“What actually happened?” Malfoy asked bluntly. “You went into a kind of trance there. It wasn’t even half bad until… well. Until you destroyed it.”

Harry heaved a sigh that felt like it was dredged up from the depths of his past, a sigh that had been in waiting for far too many years now. He didn’t know why he felt compelled to talk with Malfoy, who was looking at him so openly, but he did.

“I had a — a flashback, of a kind,” Harry frowned. He wouldn’t have said it ordinarily, but the war turned things like that into a commonplace occurrence, something that even the best of them could lay claim to. 

Malfoy merely hummed and nodded for him to go on.

“I was raised with my Aunt and Uncle. They were Muggles, and they had it in for me because they knew I was magical. They didn’t tell me, mind you, because they thought they could repress it.”

Malfoy nodded again. Since when did Malfoy listen to his problems?

“They locked me in a cupboard,” Harry laughed. It struck him that he’d never really talked about this openly. He wasn’t sure if he’d withheld it on purpose or if he’d just never seen the right opportunity, but now _all_ the words were spilling out across the ground. “I lived in there for most of my life. And whenever I did something wrong, they wouldn’t even let me out for food. I had to learn exactly which floorboards creaked and at which times of night. I could only eat foods that my cousin didn’t like when I snuck out to get some, because otherwise he’d notice the loss. I learned that quickly. I learned — erm. Well. I had to learn a lot of things quickly if I wanted to survive unscathed.”

Harry couldn’t stop it. The valve had been opened, and there was seemingly no closing it.

“I wasn’t allowed to talk about anything that didn’t make _sense._ It had to be purely logical — if they so much as _saw_ Trelawny, I’m pretty sure they both would have spontaneously ruptured. Not that I would have complained”

Malfoy laughed and it was warm and it made the words so much easier. As though the ice around him was melting slowly, breaking down barriers he hadn’t known about. 

“So I drew,” Harry said quietly. “I’ve never told anyone, but I drew pictures in the dirt with my fingers. I don’t know. Whenever I try to draw now it’s all I can think of, and…they aren’t exactly pleasant memories. My cousin was as bad as you were, at school. Not that — not that I’m still holding that over your head. But. I think that’s part of the reason I hated you so much. You reminded me of him.”

“I’m sorry,” Malfoy said, a crease set heavy in his forehead. 

Harry shrugged. He wasn’t sure what to say next. “I’m sure you didn’t have a great childhood either, with — well. Your father.”

“I had a perfect childhood,” Malfoy said shortly. “I got everything I asked for. I’m the Malfoy heir, after all.”

“Right.” Harry frowned. Somehow, he couldn’t picture Lucius Malfoy being an especially loving father, but Malfoy didn’t seem like he was willing to listen to Harry’s criticism, so he stayed quiet. “Anyhow.”

“You’re good at drawing though,” Malfoy said, with a tiny shrug.

“Thanks,” Harry said, trying not to be taken aback. It was tiny things like this that threw him off so much — the combination of Malfoy’s genuine compliment and the tiny shrug that disrupted his appearance of perfect poise, a tiny movement of vulnerability, even though Harry didn’t see how a _shrug_ could be vulnerable. Maybe it was Malfoy that made it so.

“You could design tattoos like Dean if you got over your past,” Malfoy said, staring down at the paper that was still streaked with pencil markings. Harry looked away from it. It reminded him of another paper, streaked with ink, dark spells twisting between the lines.

“Dean wants me to,” Harry scoffed. “He keeps trying to get me to draw.”

“You don’t want to?”

“Did you not see what happened when I tried to draw?” Harry asked, and he could feel embarrassment washing over him when he realized he completely ridiculous his display must have looked, pencil markings still spattered across the bridge of his nose. 

“It was your first attempt,” Malfoy said simply. “You can’t expect to do everything perfectly on your first try.” He paused and tilted his head. “Although you usually do, don’t you?”

“What do you mean?” Harry frowned. 

“I dunno,” Malfoy shrugged. “You could fly well enough without knowing how. You defeated Voldemort time and time again with less knowledge than most of the people in our world. You have a knack for doing things well the first time around, don’t you?”

“That’s not true!” Harry insisted. “What about your tattoo?”

“Speaking of which,” Malfoy said, cleanly changing the topic. Perhaps to avoid Harry getting riled up — it wasn’t stupid. “I’m taking up far too much of your time.”

“It’s okay,” Harry shrugged it off. “I’m on lunch break anyways, I don’t have customers at this time.”

Malfoy frowned at him, and Harry tried not to look too closely at his face. More and more it made his stomach flip in a way that was uncomfortable, something he didn’t want to examine too closely on the off chance that it was something he wasn’t meant to discover.

“You should eat.”

“I will,” Harry dismissed him with a wave of his hand, but Malfoy didn’t seem to like being dismissed.

“No,” he said, calmly but firmly. “Last time you said you’d take care of yourself you ended up in the hospital.” He stood up from his chair, slinging his traveling cloak over his arm and taking a step towards the door before turning to look back at Harry expectantly. Harry must have missed something, because he had no idea what that look meant from Malfoy.

“What?” he asked after a moment, glancing around him. “I — what?”

“Lunch, Potter,” Malfoy said in that exasperated voice of his that seemed like he was questioning how the world couldn’t read his mind. “It’s your lunch break. Now, are you coming or not? There isn’t much time left, and you’re going to eat if it’s the last thing I get you to do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hhhh what am I doing with my life


	15. Chapter 15

That was how Harry found himself at a muggle coffee shop a moment later. To his never ending surprise, Malfoy didn’t say a word about how _un_ _esteemed_ it was, how _plebeian_ to be dining amongst non-magical people.

They sat down across from each other, and Harry had another moment, one of those where he realized how strange his life was now compared to where he would have predicted any amount of time ago. Nowhere in his past life would he have looked across to the Slytherin table and taken in Malfoy’s smirk and flashing hair and thought to himself, _I’m going to end up sitting across from him in a coffee shop someday._

And yet, here he was.

“So,” Harry said. All of a sudden he was inexplicably nervous. He wasn’t in his shop or his flat anymore — he wasn’t in his own realm, where he had control over everything that was going on. Hermione wasn’t here to take care of awkward silences. No, now it was him and Malfoy and nobody else. Alone. Sitting across from each other in a restaurant.

“So,” Malfoy said quietly, sounding secretly amused, laughing at some joke Harry wasn’t privy to. “Tattoo?”

“Yeah,” Harry frowned. “Still haven’t chosen a design, have you?”

“Maybe it should just be a square,” Malfoy said with a laugh — another thrill through Harry. “That’ll cover it for sure and then there’s no need for you to draw. That won’t look suspicious at all, will it?”

“Definitely not.” Harry grinned back at him, and something about the ease with which they were discussing this — this mark of the war that used to hang over peoples’ houses — it made his heart soar. It was as though, as unlikely as it seemed, he and _Malfoy_ had finally managed to put their past where it belonged. Well and truly in the past. “I can try drawing something again, if you really want.”

“Sure,” Malfoy shrugged. He pushed his napkin across the table and pulled a pen from his pocket, clicking it and holding it out to Harry. Harry grabbed it, ignoring the brush of his fingertips across Malfoy’s palm.

“Right. What do you want?”

“Anything,” Malfoy said again. “Anything at all. Just draw.”

So Harry tried. But once again, the second he pressed the pen against the napkin, things began to swirl and he pulled it away with a shake of his head. Malfoy gave him a worried look exactly as the waiter walked over to their table.

“What can I get for you?” he asked politely, and Harry let Malfoy order, still feeling rather shaken and trying not to show it. He noticed that Malfoy was wearing his sleeves rolled up, Mark tilted and on display to the rest of the world. He wondered why.

“Why do you show it like that if you hate it so much?” Harry asked curiously, still staring down at Malfoy’s arm. “You want it covered so badly.”

“Yeah, well, Muggles don’t care, do they.”

“No.”

“Do you know the number of times I’ve been attacked on the streets for my mark, Potter? My sleeve rolls accidentally and it’s there. It can’t ever be covered, remember? It’s stuck there. No matter what I want to do. It’s like a _beacon_ to the world, screaming for them to come attack the Death Eater.”

Harry didn’t want to hear this, because with each moment it made him feel worse about being so horrible to Malfoy at the beginning. The whole world was being horrible enough without him. Really, Harry realized, they were all just products of a war that had come to soon when they were all far too young.

“Sorry,” Harry said, and he meant it. He was sorry for the way Malfoy got treated, and for the way he might always get treated, immortalized as evil when that really wasn’t the case.

Harry remembered something Sirius had said a long time ago. _“The world isn’t split into good people and Death Eaters.”_

Harry sighed and looked down at the napkin, at the miniscule mark of pen that was all he’d been able to manage. It was pathetic, really, the way his abilities were down to this tiny dash on a napkin. That was all he could draw.

When their food came, there was silence for a moment. It wasn’t awkward, and not tense anymore. It was present, though, the bubble that seemed to cover only their table, the not talking. It was odd to see Malfoy eat, and Harry understood at that second that he’d never really seen Malfoy as _human._ The war changed him, turned him from a bully to _inaccessible,_ turned him from a person to nothing.

And now, Harry realized, he was relearning Malfoy. Or perhaps learning things he’d never bothered with in the first place, too wrapped up in their own proclaimed rivalry.

“Do you _want_ to draw?” Malfoy said finally, and he was smiling now, although Harry wasn’t sure way. He took a bite of his sandwich, and Harry did his best not to stare at the bob of his throat, tried not to stare at anything too much, because Malfoy had suddenly become all too alluring.

“Er — I dunno,” Harry said with a shrug. He felt fifteen again, uncertain of his footing, and all of it was Malfoy’s fault. He’d had control of the world back in Skin Deep, before Malfoy. Although, when he thought about it, he wasn’t sure if he would change the way events had unfolded.

“Well,” Malfoy said slowly. “Have you seen your Aunt and Uncle since?”

“Since before the war?” Harry asked, not quite understanding where he was going with this. “No. Why?”

“I’m no psychologist,” Malfoy began, “But maybe it would help to…I don’t know, get closure.”

“You think I should go back.”

Malfoy shrugged.

Harry shook his head and looked away, because thinking about it made him feel unsafe again, like he was eleven and locked away. “I don’t think so. I don’t want Ron or Hermione to come with me, because they’d be all…weird. Pitying. I don’t know. I don’t really want to deal with that, and I don’t want to go alone.”

There was a long pause where Harry took a bite of his sandwich and Malfoy just stared at him, looking posh — regal, almost, with his straight backed posture and formal robes, hair looser than it ever had been at school. It suited him, Harry thought, and then tried not to think, because then he started noticing the way Malfoy had filled out his lanky, pointed form. 

“I could go,” Malfoy said finally, jolting Harry out of his crisis. “With you, I mean.”

“You —?” Harry stared at him.

“Don’t look so surprised,” Malfoy said sulkily, staring down at his sandwich. “It’s not like you’re my arch nemesis anymore, Potter. We see each other nearly every day.”

“For _work,”_ Harry said. “It’s not like we’re friends.”

“Aren’t we?” was all Malfoy said, in a disinterested tone of voice that would have seemed real if not for the tapping of his fingers against the plate that betrayed something more. Something that almost made it look like he actually cared.

Harry considered it. 

“Maybe,” he said, even though the question had probably been rhetorical.

Malfoy shrugged. It wasn’t positive, wasn’t negative.

“Well,” he said, “I can go with you if you want. The offer stands.” And then he took another bite of sandwich, wiping his hands against the napkin ever so politely, before setting it off to the side. He looked back up at Harry.

“Thanks,” Harry said. “I’ll keep it in mind.” And to his own surprise, he found that he actually would. 

They returned to the tattoo shop later that night, and Harry found a stack of papers waiting on his desk from Dean. He turned to Malfoy apologetically. 

“I have to work on these,” he said, gesturing to the files. “I’d say you could come back later, but that’s probably a pain for you, so we can continue tomorrow if that works.”

“I can wait,” Malfoy shrugged, already curled up in his armchair. “I mean, if you don’t mind. I don’t have much else to be doing anyways.” He looked over at Harry, knees pulled up to his chest, and Harry felt a tiny twist inside of him. He wondered if anybody else saw Malfoy like this, vulnerable and waiting, or if it was just him. The thought his insides leap strangely. He took a deep breath, trying to steady himself, trying not to admit whatever might be lurking deeper down. 

Especially now that Malfoy’s full attention was trained on him, watching, waiting.

“Right,” Harry said. “Yeah. That’s fine.” He picked up a case and began to work, pulling at the magic like he so often did, twisting and closing his eyes and threading strands between each other. Inventing spells, this is what he loved to do. He cast a wordless spell — the words came later, a vessel to help contain the magic, to lock it in for continual use. Harry didn’t need that yet. He watched as Dean’s swan design lit up, a feather falling slowly, and shook his head, turning back to the magic.

When he finally finished, he found Malfoy still curled up, hair soft and loose around his head, which was resting on the heel of his hand.

“What?” Harry asked self-consciously, bringing a hand to his hair in an imitation of his father. 

“I like watching you work,” Malfoy laughed. “You’re good at manipulating magic. I could never get the hang of that — I was always better at the potions side of things. It’s a whole different branch.”

“Mmm,” Harry said, trying not to show the turmoil inside of him at Malfoy’s words. _I like watching you work._ When Harry finally finished with the files, he turned back to Malfoy, who was smiling faintly at him.

“That’s really disconcerting,” Harry said, because it _was,_ having Malfoy stare at him while he worked. It didn’t seem like Malfoy. None of this seemed especially like Malfoy.

“Well, I’m sorry,” Malfoy smirked, not sounding it. “Are we going to attempt this tattoo now? We can use a pre-drawn design, I don’t really care.”

“Okay,” Harry said, and they went to visit Dean. This time he didn’t feel so strange as he lingered in the doorway and watched Malfoy get tattooed, as Dean carefully put ink where there already was, not a hint of magic — all the muggle way. Malfoy didn’t flinch. He didn’t show even a sliver of pain. Harry knew there were magical ways to make it so you couldn’t feel pain, but Malfoy hadn’t done that. Harry wondered if it had anything to do with his past _tattoo,_ the one that had scalded pain beyond anything.

When the tattoo was finally done, Malfoy looked down in interest. It was twining, a bird in flight that spiralled up the length of his arm, tendrils of black covering the pale-milky-white of his skin.

“How does it look?” Malfoy asked, walking over to Harry, and Harry did his best not to swallow.

“Good,” he said, and it did. It looked beautiful on Malfoy’s arm — _tattoos_ looked beautiful on him, as though he was finally breaking free from the perfectly civilized way he’d been raised. Somehow, tattoos didn’t seem like the type of thing pureblood families would approve of, and that made it look even better. 

“Good,” Malfoy said approvingly, nodding towards Dean. “It’s all thanks to you, of course. You’re an excellent tattoo artist.”

“I appreciate it,” Dean said with a smile. “You aren’t a bad customer yourself, you know.”

Malfoy laughed, and it was one of those rare genuine laughs that made Harry want to join in, that made him wonder what had happened with the world.

When Malfoy left that night, Harry had a strange feeling lurking within him, something akin to a softer version of dread. He kept wondering if this had been the key — if Malfoy’s mark would be covered, if he wouldn’t return to the shop anymore and Harry would never see him again. Harry wondered why that bothered him so much — only a short time ago, he’d have given anything to never see Malfoy again, but now — now, he almost felt empty. 

_Friends,_ Malfoy had said. _Aren’t we?_

 

* * *

 

He shouldn’t have worried. Malfoy was back the next morning with a wry smile that made Harry laugh, and Malfoy didn’t seem to mind. It was as though he’d stopped assuming Harry was laughing _at_ him, and now it was mere laughing, a joy that they could all join in on.

“So,” Harry said, when Malfoy had perched himself on the chair that he’d claimed as his own. “Back again.”

“Back again,” Malfoy smirked, and it was one of the smirks that sent Harry’s stomach into twirling nosedives, now that it was aimed at him in a less than malevolent way. “I thought it might work this time, but that would’ve been too simple.” He held out his arm and pulled up the sleeve to reveal — nothing. It was as though the tattoo had never been there in the first place, as though there had only ever been the Dark Mark.

Not a trace. Just — gone.

“Brilliant,” Harry said sarcastically. “Absolutely brilliant. We’re back to square one, then?”

“Not completely,” Malfoy said slowly. “You said you had a couple other ideas, didn’t you? We can start with those.”

“Right,” Harry said. “I’m assuming you want the one that _doesn’t_ require a blood sacrifice first?”

Malfoy gave him a look and pulled his knees tighter to his chest, something that made Harry hyper-aware of Malfoy’s presence in the room — of their complete _alone_ ness in the room. He wasn’t sure why he hadn’t noticed before, because now it felt like there was barely enough breathing room for the both of them. 

“Okay,” Harry said slowly. “So we’re going to need a growing tattoo. It can be a kind of plant — anything that expands. I’m doubtful that this is going to work, but. Well. May as well give it a try, we’ve got nothing much to lose at this point.”

“Okay,” Malfoy shrugged. And so Harry dug out a charm — he’d already created it, because sprouting flowers had been a common one when he first started working. There was somebody who wanted a whole garden done on their back, growing as the time ticked on.

“Anything in particular you’re thinking of?” Harry asked, and Malfoy looked away. He opened his mouth and then appeared to think better of it, but Harry was too curious to let it slide. “What were you going to say?”

“I was going to ask… do you think we could try a Narcissus flower?” 

“Because of your mother?” Harry asked, knowing he was right and only feeling slightly bad about asking a question like that. He felt like that wasn’t entirely over a line, now that he’d seen Malfoy’s mother in person. Malfoy seemed to have come to the same conclusion. He shrugged and nodded. He still didn’t want to tell Harry what had happened to his mother, it seemed, but Harry didn’t pry because it wasn’t any of his business.

Harry hesitated. It was something he’d mulled over in his head since yesterday, since Malfoy had made the offer to visit Harry’s old house with him. He knew — as soon as he got back to his flat, he knew — that if he didn’t take Malfoy up on the offer soon, he never would. He’d put it off and put it off until he thought it was too late and then, he’d chickened out. Unfortunately, being Gryffindor didn’t trump everything, especially not when it came to Malfoy.

So Harry drew his courage and asked.

“Hey Malfoy,” he said slowly. “Do you think I can take you up on that offer?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm gonna be posting these whenever I get the chance! I'll probably have all the chapters up within the next couple days :)


	16. Chapter 16

“You want me to visit your old home with you?” Malfoy asked, jaw slack with what Harry could only pin down as amazement. Something close to that at least — awe, maybe shock. It was something that made Malfoy look — again — human, curled as he was into the chair that he seemed to have claimed at his own. Harry wasn’t sure he’d be able to look at that chair again without thinking of Malfoy. 

“Yeah,” Harry said. “I guess. You were the one who suggested it.”

“Okay,” Malfoy said hesitantly, and Harry wondered in a brief moment of panic if Malfoy had been joking when he offered. Because Harry had been right, hadn't he? They weren’t really friends. Not like Ron and Hermione, who — well — who he didn’t talk to so much anymore, and who were occupied with each other instead of Harry. The more he thought about it, the more he realized that Malfoy was the most present person in his life at the moment. He wasn’t sure how to feel about that.

“Can we go now?” Harry asked. It was another matter of now or chicken out, because he knew he’d chicken out if he gave himself the chance. This was something that he thought he might need, after all. Closure, from his childhood, from the war, from everything in his past.

Set the past to rest so that he could move forwards.

“Fine,” Malfoy said, standing up and grabbing his traveling cloak. “Let’s do that, then.” He held out his hand, and Harry looked at it for a moment before realizing what the gesture meant. Sidealong apparition, he realized. Of course. It was daft of him not to know immediately, because for a second it had almost seemed like…

Harry let his thoughts trail off, because he didn’t need them going there. Not now, perhaps not ever. So Harry shook himself mentally and grabbed a hold of Malfoy’s hand, letting them disappear in a haze of apparition. 

They spun back into the world — a technicolor blur, certain in its solidity only because of Malfoy’s firm grip on Harry's hand. 

“So this was where you lived,” Malfoy said, looking around the street curiously. They had apparated down on the end next to a grove of trees that Harry could remember climbing when he was young, in an effort to escape Dudley’s clutches. Harry wasn’t sure why he’d come to this exact point, but he had, and Malfoy was looking around him with a genuine curiosity.

“Yeah,” Harry said. He felt nostalgia — not the good kind at all, but nostalgia nonetheless — overwhelming him, with the streets he knew far too well, having to memorize him after he’d been chased down the streets by Dudley’s gang one too many times. “This is where I lived,” he agreed dryly.

“It’s only fitting, really, that you took me here.” Malfoy said. “You saw where I lived.”

“Well, I didn't get the chance to look around much,” Harry muttered. “Seeing as I was being held captive in your basement at the time. Or don’t you remember that?”

Malfoy just rolled his eyes, and Harry realized with a start that an  eyeroll was the kind of reaction he’d been looking for. They could dismiss the war now, their past, and it felt okay. 

“You know what I mean,” Malfoy said with a sigh. Somehow they understood without saying that the time in Malfoy manor had been awful for both of them, and somehow they didn’t need to talk about it. 

“Yeah, I know,“ Harry smirked. “No albino peacocks walking around my street, I’m afraid. I hope you can make do anyways.”

Mafoy elbowed him in the side, and they made their way down the road as Harry pointed out different houses on the way. 

“This was where Piers lived — he was one of Dudley’s best friends, you know, he loved chasing after me too. And this was where Mrs. Figg lived. I always thought she was a muggle, but it turned out in the end she was a squib and Dumbledore sent her here to watch over me. Somehow I’m not surprised when it comes to Dumbledore anymore.”

Malfoy was taking in everything with a vapid interest that Harry didn’t understand, but somehow it helped him tell his childhood in a way that meant he didn’t have to dwell too long.

“And this,” Harry said finally, coming to a stop in front of the house where he’d lived for so many years, “Is my home.”

Malfoy looked it up and down curiously, as though he were about to buy the house and had to assess the value first. Finally he looked over at Harry with a shrug. 

“Looks like most of the other muggle houses,” he said finally. “Nothing especially crazy yet.”

Harry looked back at him.

“There won’t be,” he said simply. “They were exceptionally ordinary. Anything that was out of that realm was either nonexistent or never to be spoken of.”

They made their way up the front walk, and with every step Harry took he felt less and less certain, like he was fighting to walk through water and the faster he went the more of a struggle it became, until he was practically pushing against a wall just to keep his legs moving.

“You okay?” Malfoy asked calmly, looking around him. His eyes weren’t on Harry, but he was asking anyways.

“Yeah,” Harry frowned. “Okay. It’s strange to be back, that’s all. Especially with…well, no offense, but especially with you. It’s still strange not to be fighting with you, if I’m being honest. I’m barely i=used to being…” he trailed off and looked at the ground, then back up to Malfoy. “I’m barely used to being your friend.”

Malfoy granted him a smile at that, and it warmed Harry’s heart to think that Malfoy found the prospect of being his friend something worth smiling about.

When they reached the door, Harry almost disapparated. There was something about hindsight that made everything so desperately clear. Something about coming back to visit the Dursleys made him realize exactly how awful it had been, made him remember the dread he’d faced at going back during the summers, and the terror when he was younger and his Uncle would lock him in the cupboard. All of a sudden, he felt a hatred well up inside of him. At Aunt Petunia, Uncle Vernon, Dudley…although less so for him. But also, deeper down, at Dumbledore for leaving him, at Dumbledore for making the decision to let him grow up in an abusive household instead of being welcomed into the world he was meant to be in.

“You want to knock?” Malfoy asked quietly. “I’m not sure if they’re home, I don’t see a car in the driveway.”

Harry knocked. He waited with bated breath, unsure what he wanted to happen, and Malfoy seemed perfectly content to wait alongside him, as though this was as much his house as well as Harry’s. The door never opened.

“Let’s go in anyways,” Malfoy shrugged, and he unlocked the door with a simple spell, gesturing grandly towards Harry. 

Harry stepped into the house. There was still an ugly welcome mat waiting to greet him when he took a few hesitant steps forward, still feeling all out of place, thrown by the fact that he was. back here after so long. Things looked different from this perspective, from his older self, taller and higher up. He walked carefully into the house and shut the door beside him, Malfoy next to him, examining everything around him curiously.

Harry was glad he’d brought Malfoy along. Malfoy seemed to understand that Harry didn’t need careful treatment right now. He needed someone to be there for him, but that was all, and that was exactly what Malfoy was willing to provide.

Harry took a few steps further into the house and he came to a stop in front of the cupboard where he’d spent so much of his life. Living in the darkness with only a few slats of light allowed through, with only a few cracks to let in the yells from Dudley and complaints from Aunt Petunia.

He pointed Malfoy towards it.

“That’s where I slept,” he said quietly. “And where they locked me up, if they thought I was misbehaving, or if my magic ran loose. I had no idea what was happening, of course, because I knew nothing about magic back then. It was disconcerting, being locked up for something when I had no idea how it had happened. I never realized that they knew I was a wizard all along.”

Harry sighed, but Malfoy still hadn’t spoken. He was staring at the cupboard, and there was something in his eyes. Not pity, like Harry had worried he might see, and not sadness either. No, this was something far more familiar to Garry, something he knew on a level that most people didn’t. This was anger, vibrating through every pore of him, reflected in his blown open eyes and slack jaw.

“You slept here?” he asked, gesturing to the cupboard, and now that Harry had grown it did seem rather small.

“Yeah,” he mumbled quietly. “I was smaller then. It wasn’t as bad as it looks.”

“Don’t you dare make excuses for this,” Malfoy warned him, and he opened the cupboard door so loudly that it slammed against the wall and a cloud of dust plumed out of the space, sending the both of them into a coughing fit. When it finally subsided, Malfoy cast one last incredulous glance in Harry’s direction before crouching down to squeeze himself into the cupboard. He looked pitiful, sitting on the floor and staring around him, at the one broken soldier toy Harry had managed to smuggle from Dudley’s room.

That was them, Harry realized suddenly. Broken soldier toys stuck in the past. Soldiers in a war they never should have had to fight in.

“I can’t believe…” Malfoy trailed off. “I can’t believe I complained about my life. You must have hated me.”

“I did,” Harry snorted. “I hated you so much. You were my cousin, but less stupid and less slow.”

Malfoy shook his head and clambered out of the cupboard.

“That’s where I drew pictures,” Harry said, pointing to the dust that was now strewn over the floor, bits of it clinging to Malfoy’s cloak. “In the dust there. It’s the only place I could.”

Malfoy took a deep breath, and looked as though he was barely refraining from saying something that he very much wanted to say, like he was bursting with something he couldn’t let out of his mouth. He seemed like he was barely restraining himself, and Harry counted his luck for small mercies. They didn’t need another person with anger problems on the loose.

Slowly, Harry lowered himself into the cupboard. The feelings that washed over him were all tangled up into one, near impossible to decipher, emotions that he hadn’t understood in the first place but that were completely impossible to understand now.

There was fear, of course, but also an odd solace - the cupboard held some of his most wretched memories, from a lifetime of believing he had no place in the world, but it had also been his escape. It was where he hid when Aunt Petunia was in a rage about a speck of dirt he’d left on the windows after cleaning, where he ran to when Dudley was especially bored. 

They couldn’t lock him in his cupboard for punishment if he was already there.

It was small. Probably the product of growing since he’d lived there, but the cupboard was _miniscule,_ and he could barely fit his whole body into it. Once he was there, he felt like throwing up. He’d never considered himself to be especially claustrophobic, but now he _was_ because the walls were closing in around him as he sat, they had to be, and every thoughtfeelingthoughtemotion was hitting him all at the same time.

He was eleven and hiding from Dudley. Ten and running from Uncle Vernon. Nine and hurriedly erasing his dust drawing. Eight and learning how to pick locks.

He was younger and younger, shrinking with the walls, and through it all he could only make out one thing — Malfoy’s voice, steadying him, calm from outside the door of the cupboard.

“Potter, are you okay?”

Harry didn’t think he could respond but it was a lifeline that he held onto — tried to, at least, as his past flashed before his eyes and his limbs shook with an exertion that was only in his mind. He could feel something wet on his face. Tears, he realized with a start. He was crying, and he couldn’t do anything about it.

“Harry. Remember that this is going to pass. Just do your best to breathe through it.” The voice was closer now, and there was a touch to his arm. Harry jerked, trying to get away, but there was nowhere to go, _nowhere to go,_ because he was trapped in his closet with no room around him and no place to go, and now he was _certain_ he was going to die here. 

“Harry.” There it was again. The touch to his arm was gone, but Harry couldn’t stop himself from cowering against the corner, because the voice had melded into the shriek of Aunt Petunia outside his door, and he could hear her footsteps.

He wasn’t sure how long it was before the world started to fade back into focus. There was Malfoy, crouched outside the door, arms wrapped around his knees and clenched against each other as though to stop himself from reaching out. 

“Malfoy?” Harry’s voice felt weak, and it shook with his body, a vibrating that he couldn’t seem to stop. He crawled out of the cupboard, feeling infinitely vulnerable and even more pathetic, but he was too tired to do anything about it. He felt like he hadn’t slept in years, like he’d run until his muscles gave out, and he buried his face in his hands, sitting next to where Malfoy was crouched.

He didn’t think he ever wanted to look up again.

“Are you okay?” Harry hated how genuine Malfoy sounded. He was waiting for the taunting, even though in the back of his mind he had an inkling that it wouldn’t come. 

“Fine,” Harry cut out.

“Yeah right,” Malfoy scoffed, and when Harry finally looked up, Malfoy looked completely uncertain, hand hovering next to his side. As though he wanted to comfort Harry but wasn’t sure if he would be welcome, considering their past, their present, their strange relationship-friendship-searchforanswers.

Harry leaned back against the wall and let his head hit the concrete. It let out a dull thunk that made Malfoy wince and made Harry smile. 

“I hate them,” Malfoy said, after another pause, and for some reason _his_ voice was shaking. “I can’t believe they did this to you. I can’t —”

“It’s fine,” Harry said, and somehow it felt right to say even though the words weren’t true. “It’s not like the rest of my life was much better. We lived through a war.”

Malfoy took another breath — again, it sounded shuddering.

“Doesn’t make it fine,” he muttered. “How are you always so — so _good._ Sometimes I feel like blaming the way I acted on my parents, on my upbringing, but…but look at you. This is what you grew up with, and you’re so endlessly good, no matter what life throws at you.”

Harry wanted to scream that he wasn’t good. His mind flashed back — to the list of spells, to when he’d exploded at Ginny and _yelled,_ to a million other moments of not good not good. 

But at that moment, the doorknob turned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> School just started again and I'm supposed to be doing calculus homework but this is much more fun :)


	17. Chapter 17

The doorknob clicked, a sound that had never felt particularly ominous before now, and then the door was flung open. They appeared in the doorway, as distinctive as ever, staring wide-eyed at the sight before him.

It was as though a freezing charm had spread around the house from the way everybody was standing, stalk still — muscles locked, facial expressions like they’d been chiseled from stone, nothing but the trees rustling outside. And then, at the same time, they moved.

“You! What are you doing here?” That was Uncle Vernon, a roar that seemed less intimidating than it had so many years ago, but one that still shook Harry. Malfoy was on his feet, and Harry followed quickly, determined to have at least a semblance of bravery.

“Who are you?” Aunt Petunia, a screech as high-pitched as ever.

“I’m Draco Malfoy,” he said, drawing himself up to a height that made Harry himself want to cower. He’d always thought Malfoy was a coward, hiding in corners and doing his best to live, live, live, but now there wasn’t an inkling of fear in any part of Malfoy’s voice. Not even the nervous tapping of fingers that usually gave him away. 

Harry almost felt like their roles had been switched.

“Who —?”

“I’m Draco Malfoy,” he repeated, and then wheeled around to point at Harry. “And this is the boy you neglected and abused for eleven years of his life.”

“What —” Uncle Vernon sputtered, his face twitching and slowly turning different shades of purple, red, puce, oatmeal-grey.

“No,” Harry said, finding his voice. He came to stand beside Malfoy. “Don’t talk, _Uncle Vernon_. You don’t deserve that liberty. You know, I was ready to forgive you during the war. I thought you couldn’t really be that bad, that maybe you hadn’t meant everything you did. There was something in me that didn’t realize…but you don’t deserve anything even remotely similar to forgiveness. You — you’re monsters, and I don’t want to hear any excuses, do you understand me?”

They stood there, shell shocked, as Harry pushed his way past them and to the door. 

Malfoy held out his arm, and Harry took it without thinking, and then they were back in the office with a crack. Harry was still dizzy, and he wasn’t sure if it was from apparition or his Aunt and Uncle.

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, letting it out slowly. When he opened them, Malfoy was back in his chair, knees up to his chest.

“I’m sorry,” Harry said, feeling a million years old.

“What for?”

“I’m a mess,” Harry admitted. “And that was unpleasant all around. I shouldn’t have dragged you into it, that was the least unprofessional… It wasn’t even part of my job. You’re my customer, that shouldn’t have happened.”

“Unprofessional?” Malfoy asked, looking dumbstruck again. “Potter, if this is still all professional for you —” Malfoy cut himself off, and he shook his head, looking sour. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter.” He glared at the floor.

“What…” Harry wasn’t sure where he’d messed up, but Malfoy wasn’t looking at him and his voice was heavy with lead. He didn’t want to deal with these emotions because it was all so messy and he didn’t understand, and he was quite certain he’d had enough emotions to last him a million lifetimes. “I…”

Malfoy shook his head again. “Right, Potter, the tattoo.”

He was curt, and _Potter_ cut sharply, like everything from before — the soft _Harry_ from his house — had been washed away. They were back to business, to the real reason Malfoy was here. The tattoo.

“Yeah,” Harry said, thrown off momentarily. “Right. Tattoo. You wanted Narcissus flowers?”

Malfoy looked nearly venomous at those words, almost like he regretted saying any of it to Harry, and Harry wanted to know what he’d done, where he’d gone wrong, because he hated closed-off Malfoy.

“It’s fine,” Malfoy said quickly, hard and fast and sharp. “I’m sure Dean can take care of it. I’ll set up an appointment with him. You don’t have to worry about it.”

Oh, but now Harry was mad. He was crackling with it. He’d let Malfoy into something, and now Malfoy was blocking him out, and Harry _hated it,_ and he hated not understanding. He stood up, feeling a magic around him that was waiting for his command. 

“Don’t go yet,” Harry said, but it came out as more of a snarl and he internally flinched away from it. It sounded threatening, but he couldn’t seem to help it. He was dark. He’d accepted that.

“Don’t you dare get angry at me,” Malfoy snarled back, and it seemed that Harry’s own crackling wall of magic was only fuelling Malfoy’s, sending waves of pure anger over to him in a sparking wave, tumbling, tumbling. “Don’t even think about it.” It was a warning, and he was pointing a shaking hand in Harry’s direction. “You have no right.”

_“No right?_ ” Harry said. He was yelling, he could hear it from above. Distantly.

“Don’t _yell_ at me,” Malfoy warned, and somehow his voice pressed against Harry until he was cowering. “Don’t get angry.”

Harry was receding from Malfoy. His anger was slowly dwindling.

“Face your emotions for once,” Malfoy spat. “Stop shutting people out and running away from things. You think I’ve been coming here every day for hours just for a stupid tattoo? I could leave at any time, Potter, I could go to anyone else. You aren’t completely special, you know. You think I went to your house because I _hired_ you?”

Harry watched meekly as Malfoy stormed out of the room and shut the door behind him, the sound reverberating through his skull and tearing a rent in the layer of angry magic that swarmed through him.

Dean came bursting in a moment later.

“There was yelling,” he frowned, looking at Harry who was still pressed against the wall and wondering what on earth had happened. “Is everything okay? Is Malfoy still here?”

Harry shook his head, meek again, feeling tiny against the roar of the world. “He got angry at me,” he said quietly. “Because I got angry at him. Because…it’s complicated.” He sighed and looked away, shaking his head. “The non magic tattoo didn’t work, by the way.”

“I figured,” Dean shrugged. “He wouldn’t be back here otherwise.”

“Yeah,” Harry muttered, looking around him. “I should probably go,” he muttered with a finality that he barely felt. He just knew that he needed to escape this place for now, because all he could hear was Malfoy’s voice ringing in his ears, saying words that might be too true for comfort. 

Instead, he found himself apparating to he Granger-Weasley house, in search of Hermione. She wasn’t home yet. Ron was home, and he welcomed Harry with a smile and a friendly clap on the back. 

“Harry! Haven’t seen you around here in a while.”

“I’ve been busy,” Harry sighed, looking down at his feet. “With Malfoy. I’m still trying to help him with the case, because he can’t seem to find a way to cover the tattoo. Everything we’ve tried has failed.”

“Why don’t you send him away?” Ron snorted. “Cover his mark? Why bother? He chose to get it in the first place, he should face the consequences for it. You don’t have to keep helping him, you know.” 

“He’s not too bad anymore,” Harry said slowly, frowning at Ron. “He’s a lot different than he used to be.”

“What, doesn’t kill people anymore?” Ron scoffed, and he shook his head. “Not sure if you can really consider that a positive change.”

“Ron, he’s not — he never killed anyone. He didn’t have much of a choice when he worked for Voldemort. He and his whole family were in danger.”

Ron shook his head. “Look, he spent his whole life calling my wife a mudblood and telling me how poor I was. I don’t see why you’d want to be working with him.”

“He regrets all that,” Harry said, and he knew it was true, because Malfoy didn’t want his past to be a part of him.

“Yeah, or he’s trying to remove the mark for appearances and not because he actually cares. That’s the most likely reason.”

“Well, he’s actually mad at me anyway,” Harry sighed. “I don’t know why.”

“Figures,” Ron snorted. “He probably doesn’t either. You’re better off, I’d say you let him sulk or whatever he’s doing. Probably busy with some black market trading.”

“Is Hermione home?” Harry asked distractedly, looking around him.  “I need to ask her something.”

“She’ll be home in a minute, mate,” Ron said with a yawn, kicking back onto the couch. “Try not to get yourself all wound up over him, he really isn’t worth it.”

“Whatever.” Harry yawned too, catching the contagion of passing exhaustion.

When Hermione appeared with a pop, Ron yelled that he was going to go shower, and that Harry had better get his conversation over with quickly enough because he didn’t want to hear about Malfoy anymore.

“Right,” Harry said when Hermione sat down. “Malfoy stormed out on me and I have no idea why.”

Hermione sighed and gave him a weak smile that didn’t indicate anything besides exhaustion. “What did you do, Harry?”

“I don’t know!” Harry insisted. “I — well, I took him back to Privet Drive with me.”

“You _what?”_ Hermione asked exasperatedly. “You — oh, Harry.” She buried her face in her hands and took a deep breath. “You’re in a lot deeper than when you started out, aren’t you?”

Harry looked away, because he could see how it looked from an outsider’s perspective — like he was regaining his Malfoy obsession all over again, but that wasn’t even remotely the case. He’d only asked Malfoy to come with him because there was nobody else. Besides, Malfoy had _offered._ It wasn’t even Harry who’d suggested it.

“That’s not it, Hermione, really, I just want to know why he’s so angry with me. I’m not in _deep_ or whatever you were saying.”

“Tell me what happened exactly,” Hermione said softly, drawing her legs up to her chase in a strange imitation of the way Malfoy always sat, and it made Harry’s chest pang violently, which only served to make him more annoyed. He could tell from the way Hermione was watching him that she didn’t believe his claims of not being obsessed.

“We got back, from my house I mean, and I apologized because — I kind of had a breakdown. And after I apologized he got all cold and told me not to worry about the tattoo anymore.”

“What exactly did you say?” Hermione asked, sounding a little bit as though she thought Harry was hopeless, which she took great offense to.

“I told him I was sorry because it was unprofessional and not part of my job, and he said something like…what was it? Something along the lines of ‘If you think this is purely professional, then forget it.’”

Hermione looked at him for a second, incredulous.

“That’s all?”

“Yeah,” Harry sighed. “I’m not sure what he was talking about. And then later he told me that he didn’t keep coming to the tattoo shop just to cover his mark, but then… why does he?”

“Maybe he wants to see you,” Hermione suggested. “Maybe he wants to be your friend. I don’t know Harry, but you could _ask_ him, you know. Speculating isn’t going to do you much good.”

Except Harry was tuning out of the conversation, because the word friend had triggered something in his memory. Malfoy, saying that they were friends, weren’t they? And now Harry felt ridiculous, because was that really the problem behind all this?

“Oh, for Merlin’s sake,” Harry sighed, and he stood up. “Thanks, Hermione. I think I know why, but he could’ve told me instead of running out with no explanation. He’s being a prick.”

Hermione tilted her head to the side and looked at him curiously, but she didn’t say anything. Harry apparated back to his flat and pulled out a paper and bottle of ink before starting to write out a message.

Malfoy.

Or no, should he write Draco? Were they supposed to use first names? Harry didn’t understand the etiquette of being friends, especially when it came to Malfoy.

_Malfoy,_

_I wanted to apologize for earlier. I really appreciate you coming back to my house with me, and I don’t think I would have been quite so stable without you there. I’m sorry I implied — well, I honestly don’t really know what, I’m not the smartest of people. Especially not when it comes to social cues and things. But I do consider you my friend, you know. I hope you come back to Skin Deep so we can keep working on your Mark, because it would be a shame to give up now._

_\- Harry._

That night, sitting alone in his flat, Harry drew. He took out a pencil and fought through the original tremors. It wasn’t that he was scared of _drawing,_ it was that it took him back to his childhood, and he hadn’t realized how much he wanted to avoid that until now. He hadn’t expected to be so affected by something that was over. 

But he did his best to ignore it, because Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon had no control over him now.  They were part of a past life, and now they held no sway. They were insignificant, as meaningless as any random muggle. They held no power, especially not over Harry, who had enough magic to never see them again if he wanted.

So Harry drew. He drew winding Narcissus flowers that covered a page, and when he got to the shop early the next morning, he set it on his desk.

Malfoy came back. Harry hadn’t been sure if he would — he hadn’t responded to the letter Harry sent, and he gave no other indication as to whether or not he would come, but he showed up like always, the bell tinkling above his head in a warning signal.

He walked into Harry’s office and curled up in the chair as though nothing had happened. Harry couldn’t help but smile at his presence, something that he never thought would happen. He held out the parchment that was covered with the Narcissus flowers, winding over the page.

“Did Dean do this?” Malfoy asked, studying the paper closely, and Harry felt entirely under scrutiny, like Malfoy was studying him instead of a drawing he’d done. He cleared his throat and looked away for a minute, then back to Malfoy.

“I did it,” Harry said slowly, looking at the paper. “Last night.”

“You drew?” Malfoy asked, and he sounded as surprised as Harry felt. 

“Yeah. I’m not sure if it was because we went back, but…I drew. And I was okay.”

“It’s beautiful,” Malfoy said, studying the paper for a second longer before he looked back up at Harry. Their eye contact held — a second longer than was considered _normal,_ perhaps. “You’re good at drawing.”

Harry didn’t respond. He wasn’t sure what to say anyway.

“You want to try this, then?” Harry asked, looking down at Malfoy’s arm where the Mark still crawled slowly over it.

“Yeah.” His face was curled in a frown, but Harry didn’t care. “Let’s do it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for so many chapters all at once!!


	18. Chapter 18

When Malfoy walked into the shop the next day to attempt the new tattoo, a customer was heading out the same way. Malfoy brushed past them, but he was stopped mid step by a hand closing around his forearm. Harry watched from the doorway to his office as Malfoy came to a halt, fingers still gripping tight around his arm, pinching the skin.

“Excuse me,” Malfoy snarled, turning to face them. It wasn’t someone Harry recognized, but apparently Malfoy did, because his eyes widened almost imperceptibly and what little color was in his face left in a flood.

“Malfoy,” they said, and they were staring murderously, fist clenched even tighter around his arm as though they were trying to shatter every bone with one grip. “Fancy seeing you here.”

“Let go of me,” Malfoy hissed under his breath, eyes locked on the face in front of him.

It happened in the space of a second, a breath, a blink. A wand slid into their hand, trained in Malfoy’s direction, and Harry was moving on pure instinct. It was like he was back in the Auror Office — no regard for rules because there was someone with their wand pointed at Malfoy, somebody about to attack.

There it was, buzzing around him, his magic reaching out unconsciously, barely a thought before the person was knocked flat on their back, arms clapped to their side like a board, not even their eyes moving to show they were alive.

Malfoy wheeled around to see Harry standing there, and he gaped in shock.

“You don’t attack people in my shop,” Harry hurled towards the frozen figure, trying to ignore where smoking dead bodies tried to poke through the back of his mind, to bring him back to times he didn’t want to be brought back to. This person wasn’t _dead,_ he reminded himself.

Although, even thinking about that sent a thrill of horror through him — if his magic could do something like that without his permission, what else could it do?

Fear, and then a _wall_ of anger, pushing out all other emotions because he had no patience for those, for wallowing and worrying and wondering. All he had was this rage flowing through him — at the figure laying on the floor, at Ron who was a perfect auror, at Dean and Ginny who had perfect lives, and Hermione who was doing perfect things for her _perfect fucking world._

Everywhere he looked, people were recovering from the war. They were coping, they were moving on, they were making perfect lives for themselves where they didn’t need anger to block out everything around them.

Harry stormed into his office, barely hearing Malfoy’s hurried footsteps, because there was blood pounding fiercely through his ears, because he wanted the blood that rushed through his veins to shut out the rest of the world for him.

Harry sat down on his desk and clenched his fists tight around the overhang of the wood, feeling it grow hot under his fingertips. His vision spun. He didn’t know what was happening, except that the white hot wood barely felt like a normal pain because it was _sharp,_ it was _hot,_ this wasn’t what pain usually felt like. He wanted more of this pain. The world was distorting in front of his eyes. Malfoy’s features were swimming in his haze, and he couldn’t tell if Malfoy was moving his mouth, if he was talking, or if that was just the haze of pain.

There was a cracking that rang through the air, a shouted spell, loud enough to cut through his reverie of _anger anger anger more loud too much._

There was a hand on his arm and sounds crackling in his ears like the static in the aftermath of a power outage, like the world had been shut off in all its perfection.

When Harry’s vision swam back to normal, he found Malfoy standing in front of him, wand outstretched in front of him. The room appeared to be floating — for a vague second Harry thought he might be hallucinating, because there were quills and parchments and books all floating around him — except not floating in the normal sense, because they were frozen.

It was like the air was invisible concrete, holding everything in place even if it wanted to move.

Malfoy was staring at Harry with a face of stone. It wasn’t angry — it didn’t seem to be any emotion. It was like the way he’d stared at Voldemort when he was stifling all emotions behind his perfectly crafted expression where his skin went smooth and blank and nothingness.

It was that that shook Harry. In Malfoy’s eyes, he was Voldemort.

“Right,” Malfoy said, lowering his wand, and everything felt carefully back into their places. “What the hell was that about, Potter?”

“He tried to attack you,” Harry grunted, even though he knew that hadn’t been the whole of it. That was just the first thing, setting off rows of dominoes that had been waiting the whole time, balanced on a wavering corner.

“And?” Malfoy scoffed. “It’s not the first time I’ve been attacked. It’s why I wanted my mark covered in the first place. You’re not telling me that’s why you tried to destroy your office, are you?”

“I didn’t try to —” He stopped when he saw Malfoy’s eyebrows arching towards him in outright disbelief. He sighed and stood up to find the wood beneath him distorted and twisting, his hands blistered and shiny red. “Fuck’s sake.”

Malfoy walked over and cast a quick healing spell on his hands before looking at Harry curiously. 

“Don’t ask,” Harry said, wanting to forestall every question, because he didn’t think he had answers. “I don’t know.”

“You’re a mess, aren’t you,” Malfoy said simply, and Harry looked back at him.

“You aren’t all put-together yourself. Someone tried to attack you a minute ago.”

“I know,” Malfoy said with a twisting smile. “Never said I was. We’re both messed up.”

Harry laughed at that and tried not to think about all the other people that had things going so perfectly for them. Malfoy, he realized, hadn’t had things go perfectly for himself in a long time. He _was_ like Harry after all, more so than anybody else he could think of.

“Sorry,” Harry said, gesturing around the office. “Thanks for… dealing with all my problems. You keep being around when I break down, don’t you.” He let out a huff of disbelief and shook his head, biting the inside of his mouth and staring at one point of the floor. He was so tired that he no longer cared about appearing weak.

“Do you have a mind healer?” Malfoy asked finally, and Harry glared at him.

“Does my mind look healed?” Harry sat down at a chair behind his desk and dropped his head into his hands, not wanting to make eye contact with Malfoy, who looked so strangely genuine. 

“I’ll take that as a no,” Malfoy said finally, and his voice was closer than before — when Harry looked up, he was sitting on the desk facing Harry, legs dangling over the edge and hovering maybe an inch above the ground. “Maybe you should see someone.”

“I have,” Harry grunted, looking up at Malfoy, the proximity making him feel hot all over, although he did his very best to ignore it.

“And?”

“Got angry. Destroyed their office.”

Malfoy looked like he was suppressing a smile — unbelievably, it didn’t make Harry mad. Instead it made him laugh, a roaring laugh, and Malfoy seemed to take that as permission for him to laugh also.

It was one of the few times Harry had heard Malfoy truly laugh, and it was free — he bent double, shoulders shaking in a most unbecoming way. It suited Malfoy, Harry thought.

“Do you always get this angry?” Malfoy asked finally, when their laughter had subsided, a foreign twinkle still hovering in the corner of his eyes. Harry shrugged. Malfoy nodded slowly.

“Well,” he said. “You might consider a mind healer, you know.”

“So might you,” Harry countered, more out of spite than an actual suggestion, and Malfoy just rolled his eyes in response.

“Whatever, Potter. It’s not my fault people keep attacking me.”

“Who was that anyways?” Harry asked. He tapped a pattern on the table, feeling ridges and bumps under his fingernails, a texture of anger.

“Somebody who my father disapproved of,” Malfoy sighed. “A smuggler. He had influence, but not an appropriate kind. My father gave his family’s name to Voldemort during the war, so — not surprising that he wanted to hurt me. So many people do.”

“Hmm,” was all Harry could say, a low hum that reverberated through him.

“Do you?” Malfoy asked finally, after a pause.

“Want to hurt you? No,” Harry said. There was a pause. “Not anymore. I stopped wanting to hurt you around sixth year, when you were caught up in the war like me.”

Malfoy looked at him curiously and then dipped his head in assent.

“Should we try that new tattoo pattern, then?” Harry asked finally, wanting to ignore the bubbling wood under his palms, like blisters, distorted and twisting. He tried not to think about the fact that he’d _caused_ that, that his magic had gone feral in a burst of energy and destroyed the tabletop.

“Sure,” Malfoy said. He picked up the drawing, somehow safe from the almost-wreckage, and they walked out the door. The man was still lying there, flat as a board, and Harry sighed.

“I should probably take care of that,” he muttered, feeling a sudden urge to leave the man there. He could only imagine Dean’s face. “You go talk to Dean about getting the tattoo, and I’ll — er — revive him.”

Malfoy snorted in an ungainly way and walked over to where Dean worked, perfect posture and feet clicking against the ground. Harry _didn’t_ stare at him as he walked away, so prim and unlike the way he curled up in his chair in Harry’s office, perfectly tailored clothes that fit carefully to every line of his body. 

Harry took his time with a _reenervate_ charm and then sent the man on his way with a warning never to attempt attacking another customer, former Death Eater or not. And then Harry got a sinking feeling deep in his stomach, like his heart had fallen to rest heavy against the lining of his insides. He could already see the headlines now, newspaper articles about Harry associating with the likes of Malfoy.

When he walked back to see Dean, he hesitated outside the room. The door was slightly ajar and Harry nudged open the door. Malfoy didn’t comment, just gave him a wry smile that looked like he was holding back laughter.

“Did you take care of the body?” he asked, and there was definitely a hint of amusement there. It was in such sharp relief to the first time Malfoy had come in to get a tattoo, to when Harry had spied at the door and they’d thrown sharp words at each other, dodging and retaliating like spells.

“Shut up,” Harry muttered in response, but he was smiling too. Malfoy’s left sleeve was pulled up to his elbow, and again the contrast between his skin and the mark was striking, almost eerie. This time, though, it didn’t have that same disgusted tug at Harry’s insides.

“Right,” Dean said, and he pulled out his wand, carefully marking the design onto Malfoy’s skin in a trace of magic that faded to nothing in a second, only the ghost image of Narcissus flowers left across his arm.

And then Dean drew it again, darker this time but with each stroke, he tapped Malfoy’s arm so the flowers receded, shrinking down further until it was merely a black line resting right below the mark. With a flourish, Dean finished off the spell and nodded towards Malfoy, who looked down at the line with slight confusion.

“They’ll grow,” Harry explained after a moment. “They’ll slowly grow, so we’ll be able to see at what point they get destroyed, and if anything it might help us to understand.

“Right,” Malfoy said, and he nodded. “Thanks, Dean. Potter.”

“Come back if it goes wrong,” Harry said finally, and when Malfoy walked out the door with his feet clicking and sleeve rolled up to his elbow, Harry couldn’t help but to watch him go.

When he was finally gone, Dean sat down at his bench and looked up at Harry.

“I’m worried about you,” he said slowly. 

“Why?” It was a stupid question, and Harry knew it was as soon as he’d said it. He was worried about himself too some days, when he forfeited sleep to stare at the stars and wonder about mortality. 

Dean didn’t bother to answer. “Ginny’s also worried,” he said, more quickly than before as though he was trying to get it out, as though he was waiting for another explosion.

“Ah,” Harry said. “You told her.”

“She says this is how it happened before,” Dean said. “She’s worried you’re slipping and you’re going to end up hurting someone, like —”

Harry knew. _Like last time._

Like the scar that stretched across Ginny’s ankle, because somehow the war was able to scar people even after it was over. 

“I’m not going to let that happen again,” Harry said, as confidently as he could muster. He wasn’t sure if he believed himself. He wasn’t sure of anything anymore. Malfoy had walked into the shop and turned everything completely upside down — he’d made Harry revisit things that he’d pushed to the back of his mind and hidden with a wall of anger and then a barrier of forced calm.

He’d pushed Harry to realize that he’d never gotten _better,_ he’d only gotten better at hiding things from himself, at pretending he had a handle on the world when in reality he was as hopelessly lost as he’d ever been.

“That’s what you told Ginny,” Dean said quietly. “You said you wouldn’t let it happen again. That’s why she kept giving you second chances and third chances and —”

“I fucking know what happened with Ginny,” Harry snarled, pacing back and forth in front of Dean, and the times from before spun through his mind, with clouds of rage that had taken over every waking second, every sleeping second of his life. He remembered the way Ginny had slowly learned to tiptoe around him, even though Ginny was the last person to _tiptoe._

Somehow, in all his anger, he’d managed to reduce Ginny — firey, strong, confident Ginny — into someone who had to fear that Harry would burst into a rage and accidently send his magic corkscrewing through the air, destroying something or eventually someone.

He thought back to the scar that mangled her ankle, long and white, to the mark that had finally broken her, when she’d grabbed her bag and faced Harry. He could remember her words like they were playing on a record right next to his ear — he could even remember their exact cadence, the rise and fall of her chest as she’d yelled at him in the way Harry sometimes found himself doing.

“I know you’re not trying to hurt me,” she’d started out, voice so small. “But you’re falling apart. You’re destroying your own life, you’re destroying mine, you’re letting the war take you over and — and Harry, I can’t love you when the only thing left in you is anger. You aren’t a person anymore. I’m sorry.”

He looked at Dean who was staring back at him with a kind of pity.

“I won’t let it happen,” Harry repeated, and both of them knew the words rang horrifyingly hollow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I started writing this thing with absolutely no idea about the plot, and somehow it's turned into 100k of pure nonsense. Somebody explain how this happened?? It was supposed to be a one chapter kind of thing, not a 49 chapter kind of thing??


	19. Chapter 19

Malfoy was back the next day with a wry smile, settling down into his chair like usual without waiting for an invitation. Harry tossed a paper aside and rose his eyebrows in Malfoy’s direction. 

“So?” he asked, waiting for a verdict, his eyes already straying towards Malfoy’s arm where the mark lay. Inevitable. Constant. 

“The flowers grew up to the edge of the mark,” Malfoy said, his sigh drawn out, as though he’d stayed up all night watching as the flowers grew, steady in their path. “And then they stopped at the edge, and a few hours later they wilted.” He pulled up his sleeve and turned his arm in Harry’s direction, where the twined Narcissus flowers were now brown and broken, petals shattered, like charred bones, lingering skeletons. The petals were piled at the bottom, and the stem was limp and shriveled.

“That’s…so sad,” Harry said finally. He wasn’t sure what exactly he was talking about, but something about the horrible fragility of the flowers and the way the skull had so easily poisoned them. Something about it struck at a chord in his heart, plucking at strings he hadn’t been aware of, a choir of music that had been blocked out by the clashing anger in his bones.

“Is it?” Malfoy merely said, looking down at his mark. “Fitting, though. They’re Narcissus flowers, they represent my mother well.”

Harry looked from the picture of destroyed written across his arm and looked up to Malfoy with something he hoped wasn’t pity — he didn’t want to give someone the same treatment he so detested.

“Are you ever going to tell me what happened to her?” he asked instead, and Malfoy glared at him. He still looked relaxed — all his limbs limp, his legs tucked underneath his chin like he usually sat.

“Why do you care?” he asked finally, on the defensive, and Harry found that he wasn’t quite sure. He shrugged.

“Would you still live in the Manor if she wasn’t there?” Harry asked, thinking back to when Malfoy had said he _had to_ stay there. Because of his mother.

Now it was Malfoy’s turn to shrug. He paused and then turned to look at Harry.

“You really want to know?” he asked finally, and Harry nodded. Even as he nodded, he wasn’t sure if he actually wanted to know, but the curiosity was gnawing away at him. “Fine. After the war, she was okay. Not _okay,_ none of us were, but okay in the sense that she could live. We went to Diagon Alley. Maybe it was a stupid idea, but it was after our house arrest had ended, and it was months after the war. Somehow we thought — I don’t know. Perhaps it was naïve to think we could go about our business.”

He paused then and wrapped one arm loosely around his legs, as though holding them close to him, as though he needed their protection from the rest of the world. Harry waited patiently.

“Someone attacked u., It was inevitable, I should have foreseen it. Poor planning.” He looked away from Harry, focusing on a point that held no real meaning other than something to pin his gaze on. “Missed me, hit my mother — I got her home soon enough. The witch at St. Mungo’s turned us away.” He shrugged then and scoffed, as though he was trying to give off the impression that he didn’t care, even though he quite obviously did.

“What was the spell?” Harry asked, after it seemed like Malfoy wasn’t going to continue.

“Fitting, actually,” Malfoy muttered. “It forces her to remember the war, day after day. It’s all she can see. When they cast the spell, they screamed at us. _You forced us to live through this, so now you have to live through it also._ She’s been — well, you’ve seen her. She’s been like that ever since.”

“I’m sorry,” Harry said, thinking about how Lucius Malfoy was still rotting away in Azkaban, how Narcissa was rotting away in her own home, how both of their families — both of their lives — had fallen apart as a result of the war they’d never wanted to take part in.

“Why are you sorry for me?” Malfoy asked after a moment’s hesitation. “Our family was nothing but terrible to you.”

“Your mum saved my life,” Harry said, remembering back to the night and the clench of long nails against his skin, digging into him at the rise and fall of his chest. Remembered the whisper harsh in his ears.

Malfoy shrugged.

“I guess.”

“She loves you,” Harry said. He wasn’t sure why, but he felt like Malfoy might need to hear it if he didn’t already know. “At the end there, she didn’t care about the war. The only thing she cared about is if you were safe. She’d do a lot for you.”

Malfoy stared at Harry a second. His limbs looked more tense now, not quite as relaxed as he had been before, but he hadn’t moved.

“I know,” he said finally. “She loved me.”

“She still —”

“When she looks at me now, all she sees is the war,” Malfoy said harshly. “It doesn’t matter what she thinks, because she isn’t a real person anymore. Everything about her is another hallucination. Another delusion.”

Harry sighed and looked down at his feet. 

“You know, I used to think I’d be happy to find a moment like this,” he laughed, a non-laugh that was sarcastic and harsh and everything wrong. “The downfall of the ever-so-confident Draco Malfoy, who thought he was better than everyone.”

“Are you?”

“No,” Harry said. Instead, his insides were roiling. “You don’t deserve it.”

“Deserve this, deserve that, it seems like that’s all anyone will say anymore. Don’t you see? It doesn’t matter what I _deserve._ Some people think I deserve death, some people — like you — think I don’t even deserve the punishment I’m receiving. It doesn’t matter, because it’s all perception. It’s like my mother’s world — only what she sees, not what’s really there.”

“What do you think you deserve then?” Harry asked curiously, studying Malfoy’s face, and Malfoy rolled his eyes.

“Didn’t you hear me? It means nothing. It doesn’t matter what we deserve. The war happened, and everybody is different for it. There might be another at some point soon. I wouldn’t be surprised, given magic. It’s a catalyst for war, and it always will be. Life would be easier as a muggle.”

Harry stared at Malfoy, wishing his disbelief wasn’t so sharp and tangible.

“Say that again.”

“What, that life would be easier as a muggle?”

Harry laughed again — nowadays, most of his laughs felt ingenuine, a strange sound that fit most situations. Sarcastic, dry, disbelieving. Nothing humorous, not _really._

“It’s strange to hear you say that.”

“It’s strange to be talking with you,” Malfoy countered. 

“Touché,” Harry said. “Speaking of which, you’re here for a tattoo, so we should probably get to work on that. There’s — well, I told you the options before, and we tried two of them. There’s the third option, but that’s more of a last resort.”

“What, transferring some of your blood to me?” Malfoy snorted. “Yeah, that sounds like it’ll work perfectly.”

“Right now it’s all I have,” Harry said honestly. “But I’m not sure I’d want to do it in your place either.”

“What exactly would it entail?” Malfoy asked. He was relaxed again, at ease where he was sitting, and Harry felt a tiny surge of satisfaction that Malfoy was able to exist at ease around him. 

“Well…” Harry hesitated, wrinkling his nose at the thought. “Most likely injecting some of my blood into the veins underneath your Dark Mark. We want to see if light magic will do anything to counteract it.”

“Will it form a bond?” Malfoy said skeptically. “That’s usually how blood magic works.”

“No,” Harry said hurriedly, because the thought of being bonded to anybody made him want to curl up inside a cloud of anger. “No bond.”

“And you think it’ll work because your blood has _light magic_ and mine doesn’t?” Malfoy asked, and Harry could hear the skepticism in every word he spoke. It sent a shiver through him, and all of a sudden Malfoy’s words hit in a flash of memories — the dark spells, the _thing_ inside of him that burst out at random times to destroy the world. Harry realized — with a start — that there was nothing light about his magic anymore. That really, his blood probably had more dark magic flowing through it than Malfoy had at all.

“I —” Harry broke off, suddenly frantic, trying to control the swirling inside of him. “We can use Hermione’s blood or something like that.”

“Why not yours?” Malfoy frowned, and Harry balked. He didn’t want to give up the secret of what he was. If Malfoy knew, he would probably leave and never look back, and somehow the thought of losing Malfoy — as ridiculous as that sounded — made him feel even more desolate.

“It’s complicated,” Harry said instead. It wasn’t, but it was the easiest non-explanation he could think of, and he’d hoped Malfoy would go along with it and not ask questions. Evidently, he’d hoped too much of Malfoy, because he immediately asked. 

“I don’t want somebody _else’s_  blood inside of me,” Malfoy said finally, leaning back.

“Why does it matter?” Harry asked, trying not to sound too frustrated, because he could sense Malfoy was going to push until he got the answer. “It doesn’t matter,” Harry continued, almost certain that he was just trying to make Malfoy forget about why he couldn’t let himself be the one to give blood. “It’s _blood,_ it doesn’t actually matter.”

“Potter,” Malfoy said, still with that considering frown. His eyes roved over Harry as though the answer would be there somewhere, and then looked back up to make eye contact with harry, no more sure than he had been before. “Why can’t it be you?”

“No reason,” Harry said quickly, and he looked away. “I just don’t want to, that’s all. Should we look for other possibilities instead? Maybe we can figure out a more likely alternative first. Maybe there’s another way we can cover it like the Muggles do. We can use concealer.”

“Concealer?” Malfoy asked, and Harry thanked his genius that Malfoy seemed to have momentarily forgotten all about his blood.

“It was something Aunt Petunia used to wear on her face,” Harry explained, forgetting that Malfoy hadn’t grown up the same as him. “It’s the same color as skin, but it covers things. It might be able to cover your mark.”

“I doubt it,” Malfoy sighed. “I’ve tried painting over it, but it shows through everything. That’s how Voldemort made it.” He closed his eyes and tilted his head back against the chair. “Maybe there’s no way, maybe we’re both wasting our time trying to figure this out.”

“I’m not giving up,” Harry said, “if that’s what you’re suggesting. There has to be _some_ way, even if we invent magic to make it work.”

“Fine,” Malfoy sighed. “But I know your lunch break just ended and you still haven’t eaten anything. I don’t even know if you’ve been sleeping, Potter. You can’t sacrifice your health because you have a puzzle that you really want to figure out. It isn’t worth it by any stretch of the imagination, so don’t pretend it is. You’re only going to end up regretting it in the long run.”

“It’s fine,” Harry waved it off quickly. “Doesn’t matter, don’t worry about it.”

In response, Malfoy stood up and grabbed his cloak from where it had been slung over the side of his armchair.

“Malfoy —”

“We’re going to eat,” Malfoy said, and his tone left no room for argument. He started out the door and Harry followed reluctantly, hating the way his stomach flipped in betrayal. They walked across the street to the small coffee shop, and Malfoy sat down at a table, raising his eyebrows at Harry in expectation. Harry hated that he could feel heat spreading across his face, and he hoped desperately that Malfoy would notice — he thanked the world for his darker complexion, because it meant that it wasn’t as noticeable when he blushed.

“So,” Malfoy said, and his smile looked soft. As though he actually enjoyed being around Harry.

“So,” Harry said, feeling suddenly awkward all over again. They were outside of the office now — not that they were always talking about the tattoo, from their long winded conversations about things Harry couldn’t remember telling to anyone else, about things Malfoy probably hadn’t told anyone else either, judging from the way he’d said _I have no friends._ But now, they were just talking, sitting and waiting to order.

Somehow, the only thing that jumped into Harry’s mind was Quidditch.

“Did you see the Cannons game last night?” Harry blurted out, regretting it immediately — because it _sounded_ stupid, even to his own ears. Thankfully, Malfoy didn’t seem to notice his discomfort.

“The Cannons?” he scoffed. “They’re only still in the running because of that new player, Belikov. He’s not even that good. They should have been eliminated in the first game.”

“Did you see the dive he did last minute though?” Harry said, and there was a thrill running through him at the fact that they evidently could make conversation. It flowed so easily that Harry couldn’t stop his smile, because he enjoyed this — the back and forth with Malfoy. It was refreshing in a way that he hadn’t felt with anyone in a long time.

By the time a waitress came over to their table, they were off on a tangent about wizarding smugglers who used their magic to make a living in the the muggle world, a whole underground operation that Harry was surprised he’d never heard of before, even during his career as an Auror.

“What can I get for you?” she asked Harry, smiling in a way that seemed off somehow. 

After Harry ordered, she turned to Malfoy with a quiet, “And your boyfriend?”

Harry froze, eyes widening, ignoring the tiny tip of amusement at the corner of Malfoy’s mouth, as though he was enjoying this immensely.

“No, he isn’t —” Harry began frantically, not wanting the waitress to get the wrong idea. Malfoy cut him off.

“I’ll have the number three,” Malfoy said instead, reaching out to place his hand on top of Harry’s with an evil smirk that _shouldn’t_ have set Harry’s stomach flipping so, although it was practically unavoidable when his hand was already resting on top of Harry’s, so warm and certain, the pale fingers stroking a line down the side of his hand.

“Absolutely,” she said. The second she was out of sight, Harry snatched his hand back and looked at Malfoy with outrage.

“What was that all about?” he hissed, looking around him. “What are you —?”

“Oh, calm down Potter,” Malfoy smirked. “It was a joke.”

Harry sighed and swatted at him, trying not to let Malfoy’s laugh affect him in the slightest, because this was starting to turn into something dangerous, something that couldn’t be possible, because out of all people in the world, this was _Malfoy._ Harry couldn’t possibly allow it to happen. He’d have to mask his feelings with anger, the way he always did. 

When Harry got home that night, there was an unease sitting in his stomach despite the fact that he couldn’t help but smile every time he thought of having lunch with Malfoy.

He buried his face in his arms and closed his eyes, letting darkness swamp him and trying to think of the war, trying to fill himself with that inescapable anger that was so effective in shutting him down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're still sticking with me, I love you! I still can't believe that there are people who actually read the stuff I write


	20. Chapter 20

When Harry went back to the tattoo shop the next day to open up, Malfoy was waiting outside the locked door, his foot tapping anxiously across the pavement. It stilled when he saw Harry, resting heavy, black shoes on grey concrete. A sliding scale of color from dark to light.

“Malfoy,” Harry said with a smile he couldn’t quite hold back. “Why are you here so early?”

“I want to try the tattoo,” Malfoy said as Harry carefully took down all the locking enchantments he’d put up, surrounding their door in a haze of protection.

“What?”

“With your blood,” Malfoy clarified, and even without looking, Harry could hear the stubborn quality to his voice, somebody who wasn’t about to give in. “I don’t care if it doesn’t work. I need to try something before I end up getting attacked on the streets like my mother. It’s for my safety as much as wanting the mark gone.” Harry could hear the attempt at guilt-tripping in his voice, and he was determined not to fall for it.

“I can’t,” Harry said firmly, walking through the door without looking back. He waited until he heard Malfoy’s voice behind him before flicking his wand at the door to lock it again — they didn’t open until later in the day. Malfoy shouldn’t even be here yet, with his perfect posture and posh accent, with the determination scorching through every angle and corner of his face.

“Are you going to tell me why not?” Malfoy asked, and the frustration was so evident in his voice that Harry almost felt bad.

Harry sighed and shook his head, strolling into his office and staring down at the ground.

“You don’t want to know,” he said, echoing his words from yesterday, because they seemed the simplest explanation. Malfoy didn’t want to know and he didn’t want Malfoy to know, not about the anger in his soul, not about the horrible spells he’d managed to create, none of it.

“I do,” he said simply. “I want to know.”

“There’s something wrong with me, okay?” Harry burst out, and his voice was loud even to himself, as though the only one in the world making sound was inside his brain. His voice rang as though he was covering his own ears and he could hear the words reverberating inside his skull. He vaguely saw Malfoy flick his wand at the door to mutter a silencing charm, but Harry didn’t care — now that he’d opened his mouth, there was no going back. “There’s dark magic inside of me. I’m messed up. Voldemort did something — maybe it’s because I died, maybe I’m still a horcrux.” The possibilities were flowing now, each one hitting him with a strike of terror. “Maybe the sorting hat was _right,_ maybe I’m going to be the next Voldemort.”

He tried to make himself angry because there were so many emotions flowing over him that he didn’t want, fear and terror and _more more more._ But then Malfoy was standing in front of him with an indecipherable expression on his face.

“Potter. Stop.”

Harry did. There was something so commanding about Malfoy’s voice that compelled him to listen to every word that fell from his mouth.

“Tell me what’s wrong. Stop rambling.”

“I’m dark,” Harry said simply. “My blood doesn’t have _light_ magic. It won’t work.”

“Why — how are you dark?” Malfoy asked, and he stood up. Harry wasn’t sure why he stood, but it evened out their height difference considerably until they were looking straight at each other, eye to eye. Harry leaned back against the desk.

“You’ve seen how I get,” he muttered. “I destroy things. I don’t even know how it happens. It just does, as soon as I get angry.”

“That’s —” Malfoy started, but Harry wouldn’t let him get a word in edgewise. If Malfoy said he wanted to know, then Harry would make sure he _knew._

“Do you remember a couple days before I was in St. Mungo’s?” Harry asked, frantic now. He was stuck in this conflicted state where he wanted Malfoy to know so he wouldn’t think Harry was a good person, so he would now to run, but at the same time, he didn’t want Malfoy to run. He wanted Malfoy to stay, to come sit in his armchair and laugh at Harry.

“And?” Malfoy said, waiting expectantly, putting all his weight on one foot.

Harry leant down to rummage in the drawer of his desk, papers still sprawling everywhere he looked, a collection of tattoos and magic and spare parchment. He was frantic, ignoring when one of the pages sliced the tip of his finger cleanly, a tiny bead of blood forming. 

There it was, in the bottom — a crumpled ball that he’d done his best to hide from sight, but one that he couldn’t bring himself to throw away.

He drew it out, ignoring the tiny smear of blood from his finger, and thrust it towards Malfoy, clenched tight in his fist, ignoring the red flush that was slowly spreading through him, right below his skin. 

Malfoy frowned down at the paper and pulled it carefully from Harry’s fingers, prying them open gently and looking down at the ball of parchment in his hands. He looked up to Harry, like he wasn’t sure what to do with it.

“Read it,” Harry barked out, nodding towards the paper. “Go on, I know you’re curious.”

Malfoy sat back down in his chair, slinking into it slowly, but he didn’t relax — spine still poker-straight. He carefully unfolded it, running his palm along the creases in the paper in an effort to flatten it out. Then he stared down at it. Harry had expected a twist of horror to his face, perhaps for Malfoy to stand up and run away, but instead he stared down at it in confusion, looking from the parchment and back to Harry.

“Am I supposed to know what these mean?” Malfoy asked, and Harry ground his teeth with frustration, not wanting to put it into words and wishing that Malfoy could read his mind, something he’d never found himself wishing before — usually having Malfoy in his brain was the last thing he wanted.

“They’re spells,” Harry waved dismissively, “They’re dark spells. I invented them without even realizing what I was doing. Don’t you see? They’re _marking_ spells, Malfoy, like the kind Voldemort made. I created these. It’s dark magic, and I didn’t even realize, and it’s like when I destroy things. I’m dark, don’t you understand?”

But Malfoy wasn’t giving any sign he understood and Harry wanted to run over and strangle him, to shake sense into him so he would understand exactly what Harry was. Why was he still _sitting there,_ with that blank expression on his face?

“And?” Malfoy said finally, as though he’d just been waiting during the silence, waiting for Harry to continue on. 

Harry could feel it. It started as a tiny spark in his chest, a strike of flint against the steel of his heart, a fire jumping into his veins like his blood was nothing more than a trail of oil. It ran through him, along every nerve, through every pathway and crevice, a trickling of anger born from frustration.

“And?” Harry burst out. “I’m _dark_ Malfoy.”

“You created dark spells,” Malfoy frowned. “That doesn’t make _you_ dark.”

“Of course you would say that,” Harry spat out, basking in the crackle that flooded him so often. A controlled burn that would soon be a blaze if he didn’t get it under control, something he had no desire to do, because the adrenaline was wracking every split centimeter of his body and he felt oh so alive. “I see the way you look at those dark magic books. Don’t even try to pretend, you’re in _awe_ of them. You cherish them. You think they’re fascinating. Of course you’re trying to defend yourself. Don’t you see Malfoy? I _am_ dark.”

“What do you think dark means?” Malfoy asked, and somehow he still looked relaxed — almost amused — even in the face of Harry’s obvious anger. It was like he was completely unfazed, like there was nothing at all that could concern him.

“I don’t have time for your —” Harry began in a spitting rage, but Malfoy managed to quell him with a single stare.

“Answer my question.”

How Malfoy managed to reduce him into a recoiling spark, how he managed to turn Harry from a blaze to a meagre flame, Harry would never be able to understand. But somehow, he did.

“I’m —” Harry broke off. He knew what he was trying to say, it was there as some abstract concept in the back of his mind, but he couldn’t quite solidify it into words. It was too _ethereal,_ floating there without any actual substance.

“That’s what I thought,” Malfoy murmured after a pause. He wasn’t frowning exactly, but there was a tiny wrinkle in his forehead, as though he didn’t quite approve.

“No, hold on,” Harry insisted. He sat down on the edge of his desk, facing Malfoy. “I destroy things and create evil things without meaning to. I do the kinds of things Voldemort did. I’m no better than all the people I hated.”

“Do you think Voldemort did those things on accident?” Malfoy asked calmly.

“No, of course not, but —”

“There you go,” Malfoy said, and Harry hated that tiny smile, like he was amused by this conversation, and it fueled Harry’s anger right back to the crackling inferno it had been before. Malfoy had that ability to distract him and anger him, to bring him from 1 to 100 and back down.

“That makes it even worse,” Harry snarled. “I’m so inherently evil that I do dark things without even meaning to.”

“No,” Malfoy insisted. “It doesn’t make it worse. You have morals.”

“I can’t control myself!” Harry burst out, and his magic sent out a pulse of agreement, sending a piece of parchment fluttering to the ground. Malfoy eyed it and seemed to consider the lone parchment.

“I’ve noticed.”

“And?” Harry burst out, waiting, wishing Malfoy could understand. “Now you see? There’s something dark inside of me. You don’t want to admit it because you’re so fascinated with dark magic —”

“Stop,” Malfoy said firmly, his hand clenched on the arm of the chair being the only thing that gave away that he wasn’t completely calm. “Stop talking, for a moment.” Harry stopped. He was still fizzing with rage, but he stopped and did his best to listen past the blood pounding in his ears.

“Dark magic is fascinating,” Malfoy said then, and he was glaring daggers at Harry. “Studying it doesn’t make me evil anymore than writing down dark spells makes you evil. You aren’t creating them to _use_ them. You aren’t running off and sharing them with the world. Everything about magic is fascinating — I assume you agree, considering your job. Dark magic is another branch, and the more we know, the easier to defend against. Now are you done calling either of us dark?”

Harry let out a heavy breath, sure he could keep arguing forever, certain he could bring up what had happened with Ginny and the conversation would shift.

Dean was the only one who knew what had happened, other than Ginny and himself. Even Ron didn’t know the full reason for their breakup. The scar on her ankle was a mystery to most, an inevitability that came with fighting, or perhaps with professional Quidditch. Even thinking about it made Harry want to lock himself in a room and cower in a corner until everything faded away around him.

But he didn’t bring it up. Malfoy didn’t have to know what he’d done.

Instead, he bit out the word he knew Malfoy was waiting to hear.

“Fine.”

“Right. Now. Was that really the reason you didn’t want to attempt that tattoo?” Harry sighed and nodded, looking down at the desk and still thinking that Malfoy was wrong, that if they attempted this spell everything would crash and burn and it would only fuel the mark. But Malfoy looked confident — he looked stubborn, no less, and he was staring down at his forearm.

“You really want to try this?” he asked. As much as his qualms held him back, he knew it wouldn’t be a difficult spell to undo if anything went wrong, and he was willing to take those risks.

“Of course,” Malfoy said. “I told you, I’ll try anything. I’m not particular. What do I have to do?”

Harry looked down at his pages of research on the subject, about the effects of blood and magic. He thought back to the memory, to Voldemort splitting Malfoy’s forearm open and pouring the strange black substance, to how he’d healed the skin and it’d floated to the surface.

He thought this was a long shot at best, dubious even to someone who tested magic for a living. He thought back to what Hermione said when he proposed the idea.

_It could work,_ she’d told him, mulling the idea over, _but only if Malfoy’s blood was tainted with Dark magic when he got the mark. If his blood is fine, then it won’t do anything._

“First,” Harry said, “We have to test your blood.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so irresponsible but I don't care, so here's another chapter! :)


	21. Chapter 21

“You think whatever he put in my arm tainted the blood,” Malfoy said, a look of sudden understanding crossing his face. 

“It’s a hunch,” Harry shrugged, and he looked over at his paper-strewn desk, a straggling quill hanging over the edge. He saved the quill from its inevitable doom and looked over at Malfoy apologetically. “But I need to work on some of my other tattoos first, I don’t want to hold up Dean’s appointments. D’you mind waiting around a bit? Or you can come back later, either way.”

“I’ll wait,” Malfoy shrugged with a small smile that Harry returned with a nod.

“Right, as long as you don’t criticize me while I work,” Harry warned, and Malfoy scoffed, kicking his feet up to rest on the edge of the desk. 

“I would never,” he said. “How dare you suggest that?”

“So sorry I bruised your ego,” Harry muttered with a grin. He pulled a file towards him and started to work, trying not to pay attention when Malfoy pulled his chair up and came to a rest right next to Harry, the proximity intoxicating and distracting all at the same time. He watched as Harry wove threads of magic together, writing down intermittent words and quavering under Malfoy’s gaze.

“So,” Malfoy said, as Harry was writing out another paragraph about one of the spells he was designing for Dean — a bottle of ink that would run out depending on how much energy you had and would allow you to conserve for things you needed. “How are Granger and Weasley?”

Harry looked over at Malfoy, incredulous.

“Stop trying to make conversation with me, I have to work!” he exclaimed, gesturing to his papers. Malfoy yawned and rolled his eyes, and Harry — without thinking — said, “If you really want to have a conversation, we should go get coffee or something after we finish this test.”

There was a heavy pause. Harry was trying to read his own signals as much as Malfoy probably was, but getting coffee was something friends usually did with each other, right? That didn’t have to _mean_ anything. 

“I — sure,” Malfoy said, and Harry could feel his eyes boring into the side of Harry’s idea. “Or we can go during your lunch break, which you always seem to find a way to skip.”

“Yeah,” Harry said emphatically, grasping onto the suggestion, because they’d done that before. “Let’s do that.”

“Fine, now do that work you’re so intent on doing,” Malfoy sighed, leaning back into his chair and closing eyes, which was quite possibly more distracting than talking had been.

He had three designs left — a tiny dog that would curl up and fall asleep when it was time for bed, to help keep someone’s sleep schedule on track. Then there was a tattoo someone had comissioned them for, an ever-changing map that would show where you were so you wouldn’t get lost. Then he had to design a tattoo that was visible only to the person who wore it and invisible to the rest of the world. 

They were all fairly easy tasks, and Harry was able to design spells they could test later quick enough that he was free before his lunch break.

“Thank Merlin,” Malfoy muttered from where his eyes were still closed, as though he knew Harry had finished without even looking. “I was about to fall asleep.”

“You were the one who chose to stick around,” Harry reprimanded him, and then he stood up, grabbing his coat and slinging it over one shoulder. They walked to the coffee shop side by side, and Harry was hyper-aware of his presence the entire time, as though he was brushing against Harry with every step even though they were a good few centimetres apart. 

They stepped through the coffeeshop door and Harry couldn’t help it, couldn’t help the feeling that always seemed to come over him as he stepped through the door. Out of his element, nervous, but in a _good_ way, one that almost made him feel normal instead of the product of a war-torn world. He felt like he’d never been the hero, never died and come back to life, never had to face the most evil wizard they knew. Instead, he was a normal boy — perhaps slightly different than some — perhaps trying to figure some things out about himself that he hadn’t had the time to do while he was busy worrying for his life.

He couldn’t help himself from smiling, and he felt Malfoy’s eyes on him after a moment.

“Why are you smiling?” he asked suspiciously, and Harry tried not to blush, because there was no reason to.

“I dunno,” Harry said, resisting the urge to slap Malfoy, because _Merlin_ could he be annoying when he wanted to be.

Malfoy scoffed and took a seat at one of the tables, so prim and proper, as though etiquette was his number one concern. Harry slid in across from him with a snort.

”Were you raised to sit up that straight?” Harry asked, unable to stop the grin from his face.

“Were you raised to sit like a heathen?” Maloy asked right back, sounding offended. “Honestly Potter, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were raised on the streets.”

“Oh, shove off,” Harry muttered under his breath, and he shook his head, wondering why he was still trying to hold back a smile even though Malfoy had insulted him. When they ordered their drinks — earl grey tea for Malfoy and hot chocolate for Harry — Harry had to do his best not to stare at the bob of Malfoy’s throat and the aristocratic way he sipped his tea. He wondered why the sight of Malfoy and his hair, now casual instead of slicked back, set off sparks in his stomach. 

He wondered why, against all odds, he seemed to be attracted to Malfoy. Not in a _gay_ way, of course — Harry had loved Ginny in sixth year. He couldn’t be gay. But this was something different, perhaps born from his time not in a relationship, some undeniable quality that made him follow after Malfoy and set butterflies alight inside of him, that made his heart twist when Malfoy curled up in the armchair of his office. That made him laugh at Malfoy’s insults and smile at the unconscious way he sometimes picked at his fingernails.

And, against all odds, their conversations seemed to flow strangely easily, even when they weren’t working on the tattoo.

They jumped around, from a discussion-turned-argument about magical theory that was more in-depth than any conversation Harry had partaken in for a long time to a meandering conversation about muggle coffee versus wizarding coffee, about the use of magic in food and how it changed the quality, finally coming to rest on a conversation about broomstick manufacturing — something Harry had never thought he’d be particularly interesting, but Malfoy seemed to have the uncanny ability to make everything interesting. Something about the dismissive cadence of his voice, as though he only spoke when absolutely necessary, as though each word of his was something to be treasured. Something he wouldn’t waste.

It made talking to him fascinating — he tended to listen more than speak, another quality Harry would never have foreseen in Malfoy, because he seemed to like the sound of his own voice.

Harry was coming to find out a lot about Malfoy, and the better he got to know him, the more he realized that Malfoy actually wasn’t so bad.

That Malfoy might even be the kind of person he’d choose to hang out with, if given the chance. If they’d gotten off to a different start.

They settled them back in Harry’s office, Malfoy across from Harry, looking so oddly _relaxed,_ something that Harry still hadn’t gotten over completely. He still had trouble with the degree of separation that he’d come to realize was necessary when dealing with Malfoy.

There was past Malfoy and then there was This Malfoy. He wondered if it was the same with himself — with Ron, with Hermione and Luna and neville and Ginny. There was Past Them and Now Them, even more so than normal people, because it was Before the war and After the war, Before and After, Past and Now.

“So,” Harry said, still thinking about how Malfoy wanted so badly to erase all evidence of Past him, how Harry could no longer blame him for that.

“So,” Malfoy said in return, drawing his legs up to his chest out of what seemed like habit. “Are we going to test my blood now, then? How are we supposed to detect the dark magic?”

“There’s a test we can do fairly easily that Hermione told me about,” Harry said, considering Malfoy’s arm. “All we need is a drop of your blood and then we can see how it interacts with this.” He pulled a stone out of his pocket, and he held it out towards Malfoy.

“Is that a bloodstone?” he asked, considering it carefully. 

“How did you know?”

“Blood curses are a common pureblood thing,” Malfoy said with a sigh, and he looked off into the distance for a second. “Astoria happened to have one. She was the witch I was betrothed to, before — well, before. Anyways, most pureblood families have them.”

“If there’s something abnormal with your blood, it should light up,” Harry explained briefly in case Malfoy didn’t know how it worked. “All we need is for you to prick your finger and let a drop of blood fall.”

“Okay,” Malfoy said. He pulled out his wand, and with a quiet murmuring he pointed it towards his finger, watching as the blood trickled from a tiny cut on his finger to fall on the stone. It lit up a glowing red, and Malfoy raised his eyebrows at Harry.

“So,” he said. “There’s something in my blood, then.”

“It looks like it,” Harry murmured. “It would have been smart to try this from the beginning, could have saved us a lot of time. It partially explains why the mark can’t be covered. It probably reacts with whatever curse Voldemort put in your blood that won’t let anything over the surface.”

“So if we can get rid of the curse in my blood —” Malfoy began, trailing off.

“— Then we should be able to cover it,” Harry finished with a nod of assent. “If all goes well.”

Malfoy looked down at the stone for a second and turned to Harry.

“Shouldn’t we probably go to St. Mungo’s and see if there’s anything they can do about the blood curse?” Harry asked hesitantly. “They probably know a lot more about this kind of thing than I do. It would be more effective than trying to neutralize —”

But Malfoy cut him off before he could even get started with the idea.

“No,” he said firmly, shaking his head like it wasn’t even a question. “I appreciate the thought, but absolutely not. There are enough people that want me dead that I don’t plan on trusting anybody at the hospital. They already turned away my mother.”

“Their job is to help people,” Harry said firmly. “They won’t hurt you.”

“Do you know how many people they probably see who are torn by grief from what happened to them during the war? I’m a scapegoat, Potter. One of the remaining Death Eaters. All the crimes of Voldemort’s side get pinned on me because I’m there for the taking. Even Healers aren’t immune to emotions.”

“But —”

“No,” Malfoy said firmly. “I don’t care. I want you to try the spell you found, because I’m _not_ going to St. Mungo’s.”

“I can do my best,” Harry said with a very put-upon sigh, “But I can’t promise anything.”

“I never asked for any promises,” Malfoy said with a shrug. “I want to try and that’s all.”

“Fine,” Harry said, but he hesitated, because they were drawing closer to the moment when he would have to pretend his blood was light, when he’d have to pretend he agreed with Malfoy and pretend that there wasn’t a horrible darkness running through him. He would have to hide it, to keep it a secret, because Malfoy didn’t understand.

Surprisingly, Malfoy seemed to read his mind.

“You’re still thinking about what you said yesterday, aren’t you,” he said quietly. “You don’t think your blood is going to work.”

Harry shrugged helplessly, but Malfoy turned to gesture towards the stone.

“Try,” he said easily.

“What?”

“Put your blood on the stone. Then we’ll see.”

Harry looked at him, feeling dubious, unsure he wanted to see the solution, but it was so simple. It would be so easy to see, to have a conclusion for all this and to show Malfoy that he wasn’t quite so unceasingly good as everyone seemed to think he was.

“Right,” Harry said, and he flicked his wand at his own hand, the papercut from before parting slightly to let another drop of blood escape. It fell upon the stone and nothing happened. Harry stared at it, confused. There had to be some kind of mistake here. Maybe it needed more blood in order to work. He flicked his want towards his hand again and the cut widened, blood flowing out more now and splattering across the stone. Still nothing. Harry went to flick his arm again, but Malfoy caught onto his wrist and held tight, determinedly not letting go. 

“Let —”

“Potter. Stop.”

“What?”

“Your blood is fine. Stop before you end up going to deep and seriously hurting yourself.”

Harry glared at Malfoy and then looked back at the stone, still a continuous shade of black only changed by the consistency of red blood, which looked like an eerie maroon — _Gryffindor color,_ Harry thought in the back of his mind.

“The stone is wrong,” he insisted, and he was staring down at his finger now as though perhaps he could see the disease in his blood from looking, as ridiculous as that sounded even to himself.

“No it isn’t,” Malfoy said firmly. “Do you hear? Your blood is fine, Potter. Maybe you don’t have control of your emotions, but nobody really expects you to. You just came out of a war where you were expected to save the wizarding world and alienated from that same world. Being angry makes sense. I’d be surprised if you weren’t angry.”

Harry felt himself wilt against the desk, still contorted from the heat. He looked down at his feet, and then up at Malfoy, and he spoke without realizing it.

“It would have been easier if there was something there,” he muttered. “Now it’s just _me_ being unstable. There’s no other reason. It’s just me.”

Malfoy looked at him for a second and shrugged.

“You aren’t that bad,” he said at long last, and it felt like he was looking through Harry almost. 

“You aren’t bad yourself,” Harry muttered, still feeling disgruntled but slightly better at Malfoy’s words. Hearing _not bad_ from him felt like a world of praise, somehow. 

“Are we going to try this, then?” Malfoy asked, looking down at his arm where the Mark was clear as ever. Harry followed his gaze. The ink was still dark, like one of Dean’s tattoos, scrawling across skin in all its permanence. It was like stars against the sky with its contrast, only reverse — dark on light, a scattering of black stars in an eerily white sky.

“Yeah,” Harry said suddenly. “We are.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'm alternating between reading the Jungle (for english class ugh) and editing this, and it's really odd going between reading about a slaughterhouse and trying to write a love story. 
> 
> But also strangely fun.


	22. Chapter 22

The procedure was simple enough — a blood transfer that Hermione had found from a book, of course, a spell that was decievingly simple. It was tempermental, a spell that only worked for certain kinds of curses and involved some replacement of blood that Harry still didn’t fully understand. They would inject it like they did tattoos, only with an added spell that would let it sink into Malfoy’s bloodstream — once there, they would have to regulate him for a few hours before they did another blood test.

Sometimes, the purging of Dark magic could have side effects. Hermione had warned him — she’d done extensive research on the subject after Harry proposed it, because that was Hermione’s way. She’d been off to the library as soon as he mentioned that Malfoy;s blood might be cursed. 

“Right,” Harry said. They were seated on the tattoo bench with Dean, side by side, and Dean was regarding Harry strangely. Maybe it was the fact that Malfoy was the one he was sitting next to so companionably, or maybe it was that Harry had volunteered to go through with this, but Harry tried not to let it get on his nerves.

“Are you ready?” Dean asked. He was rather dubious about the whole process. He didn’t think it was a good idea to go through with it. He, like Harry, had lobbied for St. Mungo’s. Of course Malfoy again shut that down quickly and politely, again claiming that he definitely wouldn’t be welcome in the hospital. 

So here they were, Dean with a list of spells in front of him, Harry and Malfoy with their sleeves rolled up at the elbow.

“Okay,” Dean said, heaving a sigh. “I’m going to do this, but if it goes wrong, you’re to go to St. Mungo’s immediately, do you understand?” He was glaring at Malfoy in that way that was so unexpected from Dean, someone who had never been especially fiery.

“Fine,” Malfoy mumbled, sounding disgruntled.

And so, Dean started to cast.

It was simple at first — an easy medical spell to remove a small amount of blood from Harry’s arm. It was over in the space of a second with only a tiny jolt of pain. A moment later, Dean turned to Malfoy and he cast again, imbuing the blood with a magic that would hopefully — if it took — spread throughout his veins, carried by Harry’s blood, and rid Malfoy of the dark magic that was lurking inside of him.

It was a doubtful procedure at best. None of them knew if the Dark Magic in his bloodstream was on purpose or accidental, possible a side-product of the dark mark that Voldemort himself hadn’t even realized.

If it was purposeful, they had no idea what it did, if it was meant to have negative side effects or if it was lurking, waiting for a time to strike. This spell could possibly disrupt it and set something off that had been coming for a long time, set there like a time bomb. It made Harry feel sick to think about, and he didn’t want to consider the possible outcomes any longer.

Finally, when Dean finished casting, Malfoy leaned back in the chair.

“Now we wait,” Harry murmured, feeling an anxiety running through him that was more worry than adrenaline, a pure gnawing dread. It told him that he’d made a mistake, that he should have taken Malfoy to St. Mungo’s instead. He’d been stupid, thinking he could solve the problem by himself, thinking he’d be able to do anything but make matters worse.

“Are you okay so far?” Harry asked, suddenly feeling frantic. Lightheaded. Like the world was spinning away from him. He felt as though he was the one with a curse in his blood slowly destroying him from the inside out.

“Fine,” Malfoy said with a tight smile. “I hope it works.”

“Me too,” Harry murmured, and he lead Malfoy back to his office. “Do you want to go get coffee or something? Or you can come back to my flat. My shift is over but I’m not going to leave you alone when we still don’t know what the effects of this thing are going to be.”

“We already got coffee earlier,” Malfoy shrugged. “Unless you want something else. There’s really no need, Potter, I’ll be fine on my own and —”

Harry held out his arm. He didn’t want to listen to Malfoy’s arguments for a moment longer because this wasn’t a matter he was willing to compromise on, not when Malfoy’s welfare could be at stake. He wasn’t sure when he’d started worrying so much about that, but now he had. 

“What?”

“Malfoy, don’t bother arguing,” he insisted, nodding towards his arm. “Just come back to mine, for my peace of mind. I was the one who suggested this, I have to be there in case something goes wrong.”

“Nothing’s going to go wrong!” Malfoy insisted, and Harry left his arm exactly where it was, stretched out to Malfoy in offering.

“Are you coming or not?” Harry asked impatiently, and with only a slight pause Malfoy grabbed onto his arm and they both whirled out of sight, out of the physical world, reappearing with a sickening lurch outside of Harry’s front door.

It was only then that Harry realized what a mess his flat probably was. He hadn’t bothered to clean it really, not in the past few weeks, when he’d been in a strange frenzy of working and sitting around, unsure what was happening to his life. He still wasn’t sure, although he was starting to doubt he’d ever be sure at this rate. But, he figured, Malfoy had seen his office already, papers strewn everywhere, and he hadn’t seemed to mind it too much.

“It — I’m sorry for this,” Harry said meekly, and he opened the door to step inside.

When Malfoy walked in behind him, he stopped dead in the doorway. Harry flipped on the light — it flickered once, and then stopped at a low hum, bathing his flat in a low orangey light that shuddered and grew dimmer every now and then. It was dismal at best, with possessions everywhere he looked and everywhere he didn’t look. Malfoy took one glance at it all, let out a sigh, and closed the door behind him.

“You’re a mess, Potter,” he said, and if Harry hadn’t known better, he would have said it almost sounded fond.

“I know.”

Malfoy pulled out his wand and considered the room thoughtfully, before looking at Harry for permission.

“Can I clean up?” he asked, looking around the flat once again. “Please, Potter, you’re living in a pigsty. No wonder you can never get to sleep. It’s a miracle you can even find your bed through all of this.”

Harry rolled his eyes at the dramatics, but then gave Malfoy a small nod, watching as he swept his wand across the room and sent a shower of sparks in its wake. Papers miraculously jumped to his desk, clothes folded themselves, trash vanished into thin air. It was a simple spell, something Harry himself probably would have been able to manage if he’d had the patience to try. He looked around the flat — watched as the lightbulb vanished momentarily and then jolted back to life with a brighter one that didn’t flicker or hum.

“There,” Malfoy said quietly, sitting down on the couch that was suddenly much brighter and much less ripped. “Much better. I’m not sure what you’d do without me.”

Harry sat down on the couch and chose not to respond to that, because he felt like the answer went far beyond anything he was prepared to ever admit, let alone to Malfoy. It was too close to home.

“Are you feeling bad at all?” Harry asked anxiously, studying Malfoy to see if there were any obvious effects yet, There weren’t, of course, unless his paranoia was going to start making things up. He felt like that would happen soon enough if he wasn’t careful.

“I’m fine,” Malfoy reassured him with a smile, as though he thought Harry was ridiculous for worrying. Harry didn’t think he was ridiculous — Malfoy seemed the type of person to let a problem go without saying anything.

It hit him then that Malfoy was sitting in his house, on his couch next to Harry. These things kept hitting him, little differences that emphasized the duality of Before and Now, of That Malfoy and This Malfoy. He like This Malfoy, sitting on his couch and leaning back into the cushion, his hair so soft around him, almost like a halo of white-blond.

Things were quiet for a moment while Harry thought about Malfoy sitting on his couch. The two of them, alone. 

He tried not to let _alone_ send any images through his mind, pictures that were unwarranted, things that were flashes of fantasy and things he shouldn’t deliberate over because they would never happen. 

“Potter?” Malfoy asked, evidently realizing that Harry was off in a different world.

“Yeah?” Harry snapped out of it quickly to look over at Malfoy, worried that he’d missed something in his lapse and Malfoy would end up doubled over in pain. But he wasn’t. Instead, he was merely looking at Harry curiously, like he hadn’t a care in the world. “Sorry,” Harry laughed, shaking his head and giving Malfoy a small smile. “I think too much.”

“I’d have to agree,” Malfoy said, a hint of snark in his voice. “It would be better for everyone if you thought less. Or not at all. To be completely honest, I didn’t know you were capable of it.”

“I didn’t actually ask your opinion,” Harry muttered, but when he closed his eyes to lean back against the couch, he could feel a smile leaping unbidden to his face. He wanted this to be normal, for him to invite Malfoy over to his house and for them to sit on the couch together in this comfortable ease. He wanted this, and Malfoy didn’t seem to mind it either.

Harry wondered how this had happened, how he found it more comfortable to sit with Malfoy in silence than with anyone else — Ron, Hermione, possibly even Dean. He wondered how he’d come to tell Malfoy things that he’d never mentioned to anyone else. He wondered about the strange seemingly magnetic pull that compelled him towards Malfoy at every turn, this attraction that he couldn’t seem to explain and wasn’t sure if it would be wise to explain. 

If he told Hermione, she’d think he was gay — perhaps she’d think that was the reason he split up with Ginny. But that wasn’t true, Harry reminded himself. He _had_ been attracted to Ginny. He _wasn’t_ gay — he wasn’t in denial either, because he knew for a fact that he wasn’t gay, and he wondered why he seemed to feel this attraction even so. He wondered why his mind and body were so intent on messing with his emotions.

So he tried not to think about how Malfoy looked when he smiled, and he tried not to think about the easy laugh he had when he let himself be. He tried not to think at all, because every thought seemed to lead back to Malfoy, a force that seemed as unstoppable as the wash of the tides and the rise of the sun.

It wasn’t until Malfoy cried out that Harry allowed himself to think, to turn to Malfoy with panic rushing through him and concern following closely behind, a worry that he hadn’t felt since right after the war when Ron stopped talking for a week, when George had vanished off the face of the earth without a sound.

“Are you okay?” he asked hurriedly, standing up from the couch and pacing in front of Malfoy, terrified that something had already gone wrong.

“I — yeah, I’m okay,” Malfoy choked, He scratched at his arm, at his throat, at his skin in every place he could reach. “It feels like there’s something burning under my skin, but it doesn’t help if I scratch — it’s deeper than that, somewhere…” he trailed off. “Like it’s somewhere in my blood.”

Harry took a breath, tried to steady himself, and he remembered what Hermione had said about physical side effects. This was normal, to be expected really, and it wasn’t something for him to freak out about. Malfoy was going to be fine. If there was pain beneath his skin — in his blood, he’d said — that meant that the magic might actually be working, as dubious as that sounded. 

“Okay,” Harry said. He nodded, but he couldn’t stop himself from pacing, wearing holes in the newly cleaned floor of his flat while Malfoy sat on the couch, barely refraining from scratching his skin off. “That’s normal.” He said it out aloud because he _wanted_ to believe the words, because he hated being so worried about Malfoy. He wanted this to work, he found. He wanted Malfoy to be able to cover the mark, to have the slight chance that he could almost start over, that he could feel like he’d left his past behind even when that was never entirely possible. It would always be there, haunting him, as sure as all their pasts.

“Stop worrying, Potter,” Malfoy smiled, and it was _definitely_ Harry’s paranoia that his voice sounded croakier than usual. He reminded himself to trust Malfoy, because that was something he did now. 

“I’m not worried!” Harry insisted, pacing further and biting at the inside of his mouth. “I’m not worried, this is going to be fine.”

Malfoy sighed and gave Harry a tired smile, not looking worried — Harry wondered why _he_ was the one freaking out about this when _Malfoy’s_ health was at stake. 

“Sit down,” Malfog said, gesturing to the cushion beside him. “If you don’t stop pacing, I think I might go insane.”

“Sorry,” Harry said miserably, not understanding why he was in such a worried state, wishing he could care as little about Malfoy as he had during the first years at Hogwarts.

“Explain the process to me,” Malfoy said quietly. “Maybe if you talk about it, you’ll stop being on edge so much.”

“Right,” Harry said, and he launched into the theory. Malfoy was right. This was something he could spend all day on if he wanted to, the new branches of magic he’d never bothered with before when he was busy with defensive spells and offensive spells. Somehow, in all that time, he’d never considered that the best way to block spells would be to understand how they worked.

“Hermione and I were doing research,” Harry explained, pulling his knees to his chest like Malfoy always did in the office. “And we figured that because of what Voldemort did, some of the substance might have leaked into your blood. Dark magic is easy to get into the bloodstream, and once it’s there, it can be almost undetectable until it does something extremely harmful.”

“So the mark tainted my blood?” Malfoy asked, staring down at his arm. Everything looked the same.

“That was the theory, yeah,” Harry said, feeling more at ease as he detailed the theory. “Turns out we were right. Hermione was the one who convinced me of it — blood magic can have strong effects on every part of the body, so it makes sense that nothing was holding. But we did wonder how there was any way to counteract it. This — this charm was a long shot. It was something she found in an old library book, about the balance in magical blood, and about the ways that can be so easily distorted.”

“”Mmm,” Malfoy said, and Harry had the distinct feeling that this was all for his benefit. 

“Anyways,” he continued rambling, not caring what he said with each word that came out of his mouth, “We technically could have tried putting light magic directly into your bloodstream, but there’s a theory that it works better with a carrier — that’s where my blood comes in. Of course, it wouldn’t have worked if I was also cursed somehow — that’s why I was so weird. The spell we used makes it so that my blood will disappear from your body as soon as the magic is distributed and balanced, hopefully. The pain should be from the magic warring for equilibrium.”

Harry wasn’t sure how long they sat there, with Malfoy asking questions and Harry doing his best to answer, curled up on the couch until Malfoy finally cut him off.

“The pain is gone,” he said. “Potter, believe it or not, your idea might have worked.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I owe my soul to all you people who've left me comments, thank you so so much!! I love you!!


	23. Chapter 23

Harry had brought the stone back to the flat with him. He was impatient enough, and he didn’t think that he’d be able to wait another day to find out if it worked or if Malfoy’s blood was still cursed — possibly even more so than before. 

It was a tense moment, and the drop of blood seemed to fall from Malfoy’s forefinger in slow motion. It splashed against the rock, maroon on grey, maroon on grey, maroon on the rock that was _still_ a cold color of grey. _It hadn’t changed._

Malfoy was looking up at him with an expression of thanks, something that he looked like he wasn’t quite sure how to express. Harry didn’t mind. He felt like he could understand well enough without being told. He wanted to hug Malfoy to celebrate, to scream the thousands of words that had been trapped inside him for a long time now.

“I should probably go back to the Manor,” Malfoy yawned, looking out the window — it was odd to see it so clean when it was usually covered in a layer of grime and dust, the remnants of heavy rain streaking the glass, the result of weeks he’d neglected it.

“You can kip here,” Harry frowned. “I’ll take the couch, you can have my bed, I want to make sure there aren’t any other side effects. Besides, it’s late and you would be better off waiting out the night here.”

Malfoy looked uncertain, glancing around the flat as though he didn’t feel welcome, something that sent a pang through Harry’s heart.

“Seriously,” he added for good measure, and he padded out of the room to grab a pillow and some blankets, belatedly realizing it would have been easier to summon them. This was probably for the best, though. He needed a moment away from Malfoy, to steel himself, to make absolutely certain that he wouldn’t slip up and do something that would end extremely badly.

Malfoy was sitting on the couch, back straight again, still looking uncomfortable, like he wasn’t quite sure if he should still be sitting or if he should stand instead.

“Malfoy —” Harry began, but Malfoy interrupted him quickly.

“I’ll take the couch,” he insisted, and then he relaxed into it, shifting so that his head was resting against the arm. Harry shrugged, sensing that Malfoy wouldn’t yield, and tossed him a pillow.

“Thanks,” Malfoy mumbled, and he curled up on the couch. Harry draped the blanket over him, his stomach curling rapidly at the softness of this picture, Malfoy laid out on the couch, eyes half closed, a blanket draped over him.

“Goodnight,” Harry said softly, and he could hear everything laid bare in his voice, every emotion, every strange attraction he’d felt towards Malfoy. He wondered if Malfoy could hear — even if he could, he probably wouldn’t remember, Harry mused. He looked exhausted enough as it was.

“G’night,” Malfoy murmured back, his eyes fully closed, and Harry stood there for a moment. He watched as Malfoy’s breathing seemed to even, a gentle rise and fall, his hair splayed out and his foot hanging over the edge of the couch.

“What’re you doing, Potter,” Malfoy mumbled, his words slurring together drowsily. “Go t’sleep.”

“I’m going,” Harry said in response, unable to help his smile.

“I hope so,” Malfoy replied, and then his mouth closed and no more sound came out except for the soft puffs of breath, warm against the slight chill of Harry’s flat. Harry crept off to bed then, pulling the blankets tight around him and breathing out a sigh of relief, telling himself he wouldn’t fall asleep a second before he drifted off into a blissful oblivion where the world was black and filled with a nonsense nobody would ever be able to decipher.

When Harry woke up the next morning and padded over to the couch, it was empty. The blankets were gently folded to the side and the pillow was placed neatly on top. So typical of Malfoy, Harry thought, to leave everything in order.

He yawned and stretched before catching sight of the note left on the couch.

_Potter,_ it read, the script as neat as the rest of Malfoy, immaculately put together if you didn’t look too close. _Thank you for helping me yesterday and letting me stay over, I appreciated it. I’ve gone to check on mother at the Manor — I’ll meet you later at Skin Deep so we can attempt the tattoo again and see where it gets us, if that suits your schedule._

_Sincerely, Draco L. Malfoy._

Harry smiled at the letter. He read it in Malfoy’s posh voice, a faint lofty superiority echoing through his words as he spoke the letter aloud, and he looked back towards the neatly folded stack of blankets. It was clear Malfoy had been here, and Harry wasn’t sure how to feel about it. About the order of his flat, about the way Malfoy had seemed to worm his way into this small corner of Harry’s life, about how Harry had come to enjoy his presence instead of being incensed every time he so much as caught sight of the man. It would have been a welcome change if there hadn’t been the strange attachment that seemed to come along with it, the friendship that felt like it went beyond a mere friendship for Harry, something he’d never had with Ron and Hermione, the jitters from the coffeeshop that didn’t seem a normal reaction to hanging out with a friend. Harry wondered distantly what had happened to his life to make it like this, and to take his mind off things, he apparated quickly and quietly to Skin Deep.

Malfoy wasn’t waiting outside like he had been yesterday. Harry hadn’t expected him to be, and he hated that it almost felt empty without Malfoy there, like the landscape was missing something important when it was really only Malfoy’s arrogant frame, strutting along as though he owned the place, which he very much didn’t.

No, instead Malfoy showed up at a normal hour and walked into Harry’s office with the air of somebody who’d been there far too many times before. It made Harry smile. A lot of things about Malfoy seemed able to make Harry smile. Apparently, Malfoy didn’t have a hard time with pleasing Harry when other people felt the need to tiptoe ever so carefully — although Harry didn’t blame then, after seeing the things he’d done.  

“Hey,” Harry greeted him as he sunk into his usual chair with a satisfied sounding noise. 

Malfoy settled for a nod of greeting.

“Any ideas what tattoo you want to try?” Harry asked, holding back a yawn that bubbled inside of him. Malfoy shrugged and looked around the office, eyes finally landing on the trailing Narcissus flowers. He pointed to them and looked towards Harry in a kind of question.

“I want that one,” Malfoy said quietly, peering at Harry from over his knees. 

“The one I designed?”

“Yeah,” Malfoy agreed, “the one you designed.”

Harry felt unreasonably touched at that, because somehow it felt like Malfoy was choosing him. Harry wasn’t sure he understood it fully, but he didn’t much care.

“Do you want any kind of charms to go with it?” Harry asked, studying Malfoy’s face and the fleeting emotions that flashed over it, so temporary, so vague.

“I think I’ve had enough experimenting magic to last me a long time,” Malfoy said, looking down at his arm with one of those dry smiles that defeated the purpose of smiling altogether.

“Perfect,” Harry said with a faint smile. “That’ll make things easy.”

So they went to Dean with the design, waiting patiently until he had an empty spot in his schedule to fit Malfoy in.

“We think the blood magic worked,” Harry told him, drawing clutched in his hand, hesitant about it being tattooed onto somebody’s skin in a way that felt permanent. Even though, of course, most anything could be undone with magic in the wizarding world.

“Did it now?” Dean said, sounding suitably impressed as he looked over at where Malfoy was sitting, his sleeve rolled up to reveal the skull and snake once more, the sign that people still balked at, the one true sign that brought back everything from the war. Malfoy looked at it calmly, as though he’d spent so much time loathing it that now indifference was the only thing left to him. 

“This is our first attempt to cover it since then,” Harry shrugged, and all their gazes were focused on that one point, converging on the symbol of death that was etched into Malfoy’s arm.

“Right,” Dean said, looking down at the design. “There are two ways we can go with this. Either I can modify it so that it covers the mark, or we can use covering ink first and the design next. Do you have a preference?”

“Whatever you want,” Malfoy murmured, looking up at Harry as though for permission, askance written in his features.

“Modify it,” Harry said quietly, “If Malfoy doesn’t have a preference. You can make it look much better anyways.” 

Dean shook his head but took out a pencil and sat down in front of Malfoy with a clipboard, scratching new lines and erasing old ones, marks scrawling over paper, turning Harry’s design into a masterpiece — flowers intertwined carefully in a way that perfectly covered the mark, a design that Harry would never have been able to accomplish on his own. Dean had a level of skill that was nearly unparalleled, and Harry realized — not for the first time — that this was the perfect job for Dean to have.

“Right,” Dean said calmly. “Let’s do this.”

And so he did — it was fast, like wizarding tattoos usually were, drawing his wand carefully over Malfoy’s arm to trace it out. When the ghost image hovered over Malfoy’s arm, Dean looked at Malfoy eyebrows raised.

“Yeah?” he asked, waiting for agreement. Malfoy nodded, and Harry could see the tense clench of his fists, the only sign that was ever available when he got agitated, or the fumbling of his fingers picking at the hem of his cloak. The other lines of his body were skillfully relaxed, as though to ward off any unsuspecting people. A guise. A mask. One Harry had only barely managed to crack.

And so Dean carefully inked Malfoy’s arm. When he was done, Malfoy’s arm was covered with flowers, creeping up to spin around his wrist, entwined with the skull perfectly. It was beautiful — even Malfoy had to admit — and he looked up at Dean with such thanks glowing in his eyes that it made Harry smile uncontrollably. He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen Malfoy this happy, and he thought briefly that Malfoy deserved to be happy a lot more often than he was.

“No problem,” Dean grinned. “Thank Harry for the design, it was mostly him. Besides, I’m the one who should be thanking you — I get to tattoo you. It’s an honor to tattoo anybody, to put your art on them.”

Malfoy looked down at his arm for a second longer before he pulled his sleeve down  to cover his forearm, where the flowers still crept steadily, one Narcissus peeking out over the edge of his wrist.

“I’m going to go, then,” Malfoy said at long last. They’d returned to Harry’s office for a moment so that Harry could instruct Malfoy as to aftercare while Dean took on another appointment. 

“I — yeah,” Harry said, confused and suddenly realizing that this might be the last time he’d see Malfoy. 

Malfoy stood up and looked supremely out of place. Uncertain, for one of the first times Harry had seen — it was an uncommon expression to see on  his face.

Harry considered asking Malfoy if he wanted to meet up for lunch someday, After all, Malfoy had been the one to say they were friends — Harry _wanted to,_ he wanted to get coffee with Malfoy again, with their easy flowing conversations and arguments that Harry could continue for years, with Malfoy’s presence — the one that had slowly become comforting instead of stressful.

He almost asked — the Gryffindor inside of him was roaring for it, fierce and screaming, telling him that if he didn't act now, he’d lose his chance and he’d regret that forever. Harry knew he’d regret it, because he could already feel the regret rising inside of him, but it didn’t seem to matter.

Instead, he watched as Malfoy gave him an awkward wave and walked out the door, robes swishing behind him, sleeve rolled down to cover his arm. He didn’t look back. Instead he strolled out the door and down the street until he faded in with every other pedestrian, swishing cloaks and strolling figures, another person in the world.

Harry finished the rest of his work in a daze, uncertain why he was feeling so out of sorts, angry that Malfoy had always been able to make him feel like this, like he was falling instead of floating, standing in all the wrong places.

When Harry went home to his flat, completely clean, the blanket still folded off to the side and note still sitting on top of the pillow in Malfoy’s perfect script, he felt a pang in his heart. It was strong — it was the kind of pang that made him silently wish Malfoy’s tattoo would fail so he’d come back to Skin Deep. 

Harry hated to consider the fact that he might actually end up missing Malfoy, because Malfoy was the last person in the world who he’d ever _miss._ Malfoy, _Malfoy_ , he had to keep reminding himself. This was Malfoy. He tried to make himself angry, to remember how Malfoy used to insult Ron and Hermione, how he was smart enough to find their nerves and press at them, how he’d wished pain — even death — on mudbloods. He remembered Malfoy’s snide glares, remembered the way he’d held Dumbledore at wandpoint.

He tried, wanted the crackling to take him over, but it was though he was devoid of all that, a tiny hole in his heart where the anger should have been. Instead, he felt tired.

Because really, when he tried to think about Malfoy’s past, when he tried to make himself angry, all he came up with was the memory Malfoy had showed him — his haunted eyes, Malfoy in sixth year sobbing in the bathroom, Malfoy about to lower his wand, Malfoy sitting next to his mother and looking like the world was about to fall apart, Malfoy returning to the shop of his enemy because that’s how desperately he wanted to erase his past.

Malfoy, who had turned out to be nothing he’d expected.

Harry fell asleep that night tossing and turning, dreaming of white-blond hair that was the color of the stars in the sky, dreaming of Malfoy up among the stars. It seemed that he couldn’t escape from Malfoy even in sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apparently the best hobbies are the ones that allow you to avoid all other life obligations :)


	24. Chapter 24

Malfoy didn’t show up the next day. Harry was in a daze, from the moment Dean came in to give him more files to the moment he got off work, a daze where he wrote spells and invented magic without really paying attention to it, as though he was watching himself work from the outside, blank and numb.

Malfoy had been such a daily constant in his life — the thrum of _Malfoy,_ everywhere he went. It was Malfoy, Malfoy everywhere.

When Harry finished work that day, he almost felt empty of everything. He had no puzzle to work on anymore. There were spells from Dean of course, although those were hardly a great challenge to him now. They almost felt boring, not worth his attention or his time.

He tried to convince himself that it was the puzzle missing from his life, the consistency of a challenge, but that wasn’t quite right, was it? He could easily find something else to occupy himself, but that wasn’t it.

It was Malfoy, who seemed to draw him in no matter what. It was Malfoy that was missing, because now Harry was certain he’d never see Malfoy again. They had no reason to interact anymore, did they? Not unless Malfoy suddenly decided he wanted another tattoo or Harry sought him out at the Manor, which hadn’t turned out particularly well the last time he’d done that.

So Harry sat on his bed, staring around the immaculate flat. He missed Malfoy even here, Malfoy’s drowsy voice as he’d lay on the couch with a blanket wrapped around him.

Malfoy didn’t come back to the shop the next day, or the next day, or the day after that. He’d vanished from Harry’s world as quickly as he’d appeared, and Harry wished he could’ve hated Malfoy still, that he would be glad to see Malfoy go and cheer on his departure. As it was, he did none of those things.

Harry fell back into a routine. It wasn’t a bad routine, exactly — not like before where he didn’t sleep and forgot to eat in all of his fascination. Instead, things were bland — he went to work, did his job quietly, and returned to his flat at night. Usually he’d stare mindlessly at the wall. Sometimes he’d wonder about Malfoy and where he was, although he figured Malfoy was probably at home with Narcissa.

He felt trapped. He wondered why he felt so useless now. 

And yet, he didn’t get angry at all. Not once, not a spark — he felt too empty for that. He couldn’t get angry when he could barely feel much. Numb, he figured, was better than most emotions. Numb was easy enough to deal with — he didn’t do anything, he stayed numb, the world kept spinning, as simple as that. 

Dean noticed, but he stopped bringing it up after the third time. It wasn’t as though things were awful. Harry was strangely content in his unfeeling. His life was a good cycle, and he liked how it was. Maybe he longed for Malfoy’s snark, for an argument or even a conversation. Maybe every time he looked over at Malfoy’s chair — _it didn’t belong to Malfoy,_ he had to remind himself — he felt a spark of longing inside of him. But those were things he could get past, if he only waited long enough. And Harry felt weirdly patient now.

But also dull.

The only thing Harry could think of was to visit Ron and Hermione’s. They’d been his backbone whenever he no longer had one to rely on — they’d been his constant when he was drowning in his own anger.

So he apparated to their flat, not even bothering to feel nauseous from the crushing sensation of apparition, stumbling when he hit solid grown again.

“Harry, is that you?” It was a voice from the kitchen, so welcome that Harry realized how much he’d missed Ron and Hermione, how caught up he’d gotten in his own life that he forgot to talk to them. 

“Yeah!” he called back, hearing his voice echo in their flat. “Are you busy, or —?”

“Nah, mate, come on in!” That was Ron calling, and Harry let out a sigh of relief, making his way through the hallway, seeing pictures of Ron and Hermione on the wall, and feeling another surge of loneliness pass over him. It wasn’t like he didn’t have them, because he had them now, here for him whenever he wanted, but it was still different. A lot of things were different for him.

“Y’okay?” Ron asked when Harry emerged in the kitchen. They were waiting for him, Ron and Hermione, standing side by side with their hands linked casually together.

“I’m — okay,” Harry said, frowning. He didn’t usually admit to not being okay. Either they already knew from anger crackling around him or they knew he was lying because Harry was good enough at that that they tended to assume.

“Right,” Ron snorted, “And everyone's happy. What happened, Harry? You look like Voldemort came back from the dead.”

Hermione shot him a look, but Harry grinned, sitting down at a wooden chair and looking over to them.

“I figured out Malfoy’s tattoo,” he said finally, looking down at the ground and wondering how he was going to explain his relationship with Malfoy, their strange enemy-to-friend progression over the course of — how long has it been? Only a month?

“You did?” Hermione said, sounding impressed. “How, then? Did you end up trying to blood magic?”

Harry nodded, trying not to think about it, because thinking about Malfoy shouldn’t make his heart twist like this, into unnatural knots and shapes that his heart didn’t belong in.

“But that’s good then, right?” Ron asked, leaning heavily against the counter, one leg crossed over the other. “You have him out of your hair. Unless he did something? You say the word and I’ll set the whole Auror department loose on him.”

But that wasn’t what Harry wanted. He didn’t want the Auror department to come knocking at Malfoy’s door — Malfoy had had enough trouble to last him practically a lifetime. Instead, he wanted the opposite. He wanted Malfoy to come knocking at _his_ door.

“We’re friends,” Harry blurted out. “Malfoy and me, I mean. We’re friends.”

Hermione didn’t look surprised in the slightest. She nodded, considering, and tilted her head in Harry’s direction. Ron wasn’t so unsurprised about it. He stared up at Harry, shock spreading across his face, as though he thought Harry might be out of his mind.

“You _what?”_ he asked — He didn’t sound angry, he sounded bemused, as though he didn’t understand how that could possibly be the case. Harry wasn’t sure he understood either.

“We’re friends,” Harry frowned, looking up at Hermione. She looked encouraging — happy, almost, that Harry had reconciled with Malfoy. It was a good thing, Harry supposed. He drew in a breath for courage and kept his gaze fixed on Hermione’s face, because she was the easiest to look at. “Yeah. I’m not sure how it happened, but he isn’t as awful as he used to be, and — well —we were working together a lot. So we kind of became friends.”

Ron shook his head, closing his eyes momentarily and then looking back at Harry with that same incredulous expression.

“I’m sorry mate, that’s great and all, but I think I must be misheard you, because… _Malfoy?_ As in, the Draco Malfoy who you were complaining about because he kept asking for a tattoo? As in bullying-git-Draco-Malfoy?”

“That’s the one,” Harry said, unable to stop an amused grin from spreading over his face. 

“Well,” Ron said, I’m not exactly sure what to say about that. Forgive me if I don’t jump on the opportunity to be friends with him as well. I’m not sure I could look that ferret in the face without hexing him halfway across the room.”

Harry shrugged. He hadn’t expected Ron to be friends with Malfoy — he’d barely even hoped for Ron to accept him, but Ron tended to be more easy going about things like this recently. Or perhaps that’s only how he appeared, another mask put up to the world like the one Malfoy war, like the one of anger that Harry sometimes projected.

“Almost did that at first,” Harry muttered with a wry grin, “Turns out he’s not half-bad when he doesn’t waste all his time and energy being a git.”

“Hold on,” Hermione said. “You came in looking really sad, but so far everything you’ve said has been rather good. Did something happen to Malfoy or to you? What’s going on?”

“Well I solved the Mark problem, didn’t I?” Harry asked, not sure how Hermione wasn’t seeing the obvious. “That means he doesn’t have to come see me anymore. And I — well, we’re friends. I…” Harry wasn’t sure how to taste it. The words tasted so weird on his tongue and they sounded even weirder — so vulnerable, so _weak,_ like he couldn’t deal without having Malfoy by his side. That wasn’t the case.

“You miss him?” Hermione asked, saving Harry from his doom by inability to speak, and Harry nodded, letting out a long sigh. 

Ron looked between the two of them for a minute and then threw his hands up in surrender, as though they were speaking an entirely different language.

“I’m going to go work on this new case Robards gave me,” Ron muttered, and he walked out of the room, pausing at the doorway. “I hope you get everything figured out, Harry. But watch out for Malfoy, I don’t know if it’s the best idea to trust him.”

“He’s fine,” Harry murmured under his breath. When he left the room, Hermione sat down beside him. 

“I don’t even know why I miss him,” Harry mumbled picking at a cuticle. “I don’t know why I’m talking to you about it either, because there’s no —” he broke off, sighing and looking away. “It’s so stupid. I shouldn’t care whether —” He broke off again. It was like he was unable to finish sentences altogether when it came to Malfoy, like Malfoy had reduced him to this, and he let out a heavy sigh.

“Why don’t you go talk to him?” Hermione asked, frowning at Harry. “If you miss him so much, do something about it. Visit him. Who cares what exactly, just — don’t sit here and wallow in your misery forever, yeah? That isn’t going to help anyone, least of all yourself.”

Harry shrugged and sighed internally.

“Maybe, yeah. I  — er — I don’t particularly want to think about this at the moment, ‘Mione, can we have a game night or something like we used to do? I haven’t seen you and Ron in a while unless it’s for a reason.”

“Sure,” Hermione said after a pause. “Yeah, let’s do that.”

So she called Ron downstairs and they had a game night and Harry allowed himself to be lost in the familiar flow of conversation and games and food, listening to Ron’s newest Auror partner who couldn’t tell left from right, laughing at Hermione’s outrageous stories from campaigning.

Harry laughed — he forgot about Malfoy. Why had he been so focused on him in the first place? He had Ron and Hermione and that was really all that mattered to him.

Except hat night, when Harry got back to his flat, he felt like the dam had been broken open. 

His emotions were back, and with them came the anger, the dull pulse that filled his whole body, just a tiny bit out of time with the pulse of his heart. His magic crackled angrily, reaching out in tendrils. Harry basked in it, in clenching his fists and letting his fingernails dig into his palms.

The pain was good. This was good.

The anger lasted for a day, and finally Harry decided he needed something to numb the pain. That’s how he found himself in the low light and pounding music of their regular club, a wizarding joint that they frequented a lot more often when the war had ended and the wounds were still fresh. Harry liked the bartender there —he was a good bloke who didn’t treat Harry like a savior. 

When Harry started to dance, he felt tension drain from places he hadn’t even known it was, twisting in time to the music and raising his arms above his head, letting his eyes flutter closed momentarily. It was dark enough that people wouldn’t recognize him instantly, only a few faces that flitted with the familiar recognition now and then.  Traveling up to look at his scar and then back down at his face, back to dancing a moment later.

It felt good. Harry had never cared so much about what people thought, and his childhood made him care less. The papers, the articles, it all made him realize that people would form their own opinions no matter what and that nothing he did would stop them. 

So now, he didn’t care if people knew who he was. He let the music flow through him and set a rhythm, a tempo that drove every step he took, the lights a technicolor flow of red-blue-red-blue.

It was then that he saw the face.

It was nobody he recognized — a tall bloke with blond hair, nobody he’d seen even in their closed off world. And the man was staring back at him, eyes full of a heat that made Harry shudder, dropping to rake over Harry like he was being _appraised._

There it was again, Harry thought. This strange pull, this uncanny draw that felt so similar to attraction. It couldn’t be, he knew, because he _wasn’t_ gay. But he also wasn’t particularly worried about that, so he didn’t fight it as the man moved towards him, dancing sinuously, seeming to twist in perfect time. 

When he got to Harry, they danced together but not _,_ not touching but keeping their eyes locked, the noise so loud around them that it would have been impossible to hear otherwise. But the look in the man’s eyes was unmistakable, and Harry found himself alight in the glow, not caring that this wasn’t a woman, not caring about anything but this white-blod haired man who was smiling at him, a twisting grin that felt almost predatory. That almost reminded him of Malfoy.

And now he was closer, close enough that he brushed against Harry with every move, a dangerous almost-there territory where they weren’t quite touching but if Harry moved too much, they were. Harry still didn’t back away. Instead, he stared at the man, at the pointed features, at the way the light seemed to dance over his hair in such beautiful and alluring patterns. He watched, as the man’s hands came up to his arms, as the man whispered in his ear, words that he couldn’t quite catch but he could _feel,_ trailing hot breath over his neck.

And then, with a transition that caught Harry entirely off guard, the man was kissing him. It was warm and strong and Harry melted into it, bringing his arms up to the man’s shoulders, letting himself feel instead of think, letting himself _not feel_ and _not think_  and go with whatever was happening around him. He felt good — there were sparks in his stomach and heat all around him and a sure body against him.

It wasn’t until the bright flash of Daily Prophet cameras that Harry jumped away, glaring up at the reporters who were all crowding around, despite the angry protests of people all around.

“So,” said the snide voice of a young man, the flash of a camera throwing his face into sharp relief. “Harry Potter. The Boy Who Was Gay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Editing" has now turned into skimming the chapter for red squiggly lines


	25. Chapter 25

It was everywhere. Harry wasn’t entirely sure why he still got the Daily Prophet when he’d never known it to print an honest word, but now he couldn’t escape the paper, his own face staring up at him from the kitchen table, in hues of shifting black and white and grey.

Harry tried not to look at it — he tried his very best, but the words _gay,_ and the picture of him entangled with the stranger from the club — all of it was too hard to ignore. It was an unstoppable magnetism, taking control of him and leading his eyes back to the article every time he thought he’d managed to escape.

So Harry had locked himself in his flat, sparking with rage and deciding that he would never leave. He had enough money. He could stay exactly where he was for the rest of his life and ignore society. He could ignore the words — that weren’t true — and he could do his best not to think about the fact that he sometimes questioned if he could be gay.

Because he could feel the strange attraction he had towards men. They were different, edges instead of curves, flat planes and broad shoulders. But he was undeniably attracted to girls too, to Ginny and Cho and — he collapsed to the couch, burying his head in his hands and wanting to ignore everything around him.

He knew someone would come to try to find him soon. He wasn’t sure who it would be — Hermione or Dean, probably concerned about his well being and the news that most likely everybody knew by now, because stories about Harry Potter seemed to spread like an especially fast wildfire.

Meanwhile, Harry was doing his best not to destroy his flat. He couldn’t help the rage inside him. It was sharp and prodding, there every time he looked at the paper and every time he thought about the words, written out for the world to see. He wondered what Hermione would think about it — she wouldn’t care, he thought, because she was _Hermione._

He wondered what things were like at the shop right now, if Dean had been flooded with customers all curious to see the famous Harry Potter, his fame ever-growing, the boy who was now _gay._ Harry wondered if Dean was getting questioned by reporters, if the man who had snogged Harry was talking, if —

He didn’t want to think about this. He buried his face in the pillow that was still on the couch, covered himself with the blanket, closed his eyes, and pretended the world didn’t exist.

His earlier prediction had been right, because not an hour later there came a heavy knock at the door. When Harry didn’t answer, it came again, stronger this time.

“Harry!” a voice called through the heavy slab of wood, and that was Dean coming to see how he was, and Harry didn’t want to talk to him. He yelled that to Dean in as many words, but Dean didn’t seem to care.

“If you don’t open up right now, I’m going to break in your door,” he called, and with a brief sigh, Harry cast a wandless  _Alohomora,_ unlocking the door for Dean. He came into the flat and perched himself on the arm of Harry’s couch, letting the door close behind him.

“So,” he said, eyes flicking over to the newspaper that still lay face up on the table, taunting Harry with every block printed word. “Are you going to talk, or are you going to sit there in silence?”

Harry didn’t answer. He didn’t know what to say. When he finally got his voice back, he looked sidelong at Dean.

“I’m not gay,” he muttered, and then he curled back up. The blanket was heavy around him, warm and soft and fuzzy. It was enough to lull Harry into a state of tranquility where he felt like anything was possible, and when Dean spoke again, Harry was barely listening to a word that came out of his mouth.

“I’m not saying you are,” Dean shrugged. “But you know there’s nothing wrong with it, right?” Harry nodded, because he did. Of course he did. 

“Seamus was gay,” Dean commented, offhanded as he looked to the side. “Had a thing for me, actually, but I was an idiot and I never realized. He’s in Ireland now, working on some magical creature theory. 

“I —” Harry looked at Dean in surprise, trying to remember if Seamus had ever said anything about that. “I didn’t know.”

Dean shrugged. “I’m only saying, nobody will care if you actually are gay. From what I understand, the muggles get really weird about that kind of thing, but it’s different in the wizarding world.”

“But I’m not gay!” Harry insisted. “I like women too. How can I like _both_  men and women?”

Dean stared at him for a second, brow furrowed as though Harry was being stupid.

“Do you mean you’re bisexual?” he asked after a pause, mouth quirking in something that could almost be amusement. Harry hadn’t quite heard the word Dean was saying. Either that, or it was a word he didn’t know, because it seemed to go right through one ear and right back out the other one.

“What now?” Harry asked, when Dean shifted so that he was sitting fully on the couch, looking over at Harry from the corner of his eye.

“Bisexual,” Dean said slowly, regarding Harry with a kind of confusion. “You know. Being attracted to men and women.”

Harry felt frozen in place. 

“I — is that a real thing?” he asked slowly, watching Dean, who nodded at him kindly. There was a softness in his eyes that Harry hadn’t seen very often.

“Yeah, it’s a real thing.”

“Oh.” Harry’s mind was spinning, because that clicked in every aspect. Ginny, Cho, the man from the bar. Perhaps — although he was still hesitant to admit it — Malfoy. It made such perfect sense, and Harry wondered why he’d never heard of it before. Although, it wasn’t completely surprising. Uncle Vernon had always rambled on about _abnormal_ people, about poofters and gays. But never had he mentioned this new thing, this — this _bisexual._

And considering that the rest of Harry’s life had been rather occupied with fighting and prophecies and all things to do with war, with light and dark, with spells and enchantments, it was no great surprise that he hadn’t had time to explore — all this.

“I —” Harry started again, and he looked over Dean. “That sounds — I think…” He trailed off. He felt surprisingly underwhelmed, because this felt _right,_ and it didn’t feel like some big revelation, some upheaval. This meant that maybe he could like men, and maybe it didn’t have to be so different after all. It just felt like this was what he’d been all along, without a word to help it make sense. “I think I might be that.”

“Do you?” Dean asked, looking only mildly surprised. “Well, that’s cool then. The papers have got it wrong, there are going to be all sorts of conspiracies.”

That’s when Harry remembered the papers — when he looked back over towards the kitchen table to see his phantom self, entangled with the man from the club, eyes closed and hands on the man’s waist. 

Dean glanced over at it too, just once, and then he froze and did a double take.

“Is that — is that _Malfoy?”_ he asked, staring at the newspaper for a second longer.

“What — no!” Harry said hurriedly, following Dean’s gaze. Maybe he was tall, maybe he had the same white-blond hair as Malfoy did, but it was only a passing resemblance, nothing more than that when he looked closer. “Absolutely not!”

“Okay, okay!” Dean said, holding up his hands. “Sorry. It looked a little like him at first, that’s all.”

And Harry was growing angry now. It wasn’t because of Dean’s comments. It wasn’t because the man looked slightly like Malfoy. It was more because of the paper’s presumptions, about the way he couldn’t seem to get a moment of peace, as though every second of his life was being monitored carefully. It wasn’t even _his_ life, really, it was the life of the public. It belonged to them — theirs to monitor, theirs to do with as they pleased. 

Harry looked at Dean for a second, and then he stood up from the couch, hearing a tiny crack under his hand like he’d split the wood of the couch.

“I want to go back to work,” he said firmly, already starting to walk towards the door. “I don’t want to sit around her. I’m going to —”

“It might be more chaotic than you’re expecting,” Dean warned. “Their are going to be a lot of curious people, I’m guessing, and they all know this is where you work. I’ve already done my best with setting up enchantments, but they aren’t always the strongest of spells. We’ll have to see.”

“I don’t care,” Harry insisted, already standing up, the sofa creaking underneath him in protest as he stood and walked towards the door. Dean was behind him now, hurrying along.

“Harry —”

“Don’t try to convince me otherwise,” Harry told him, because his mind was already made up a thousand times over. He was determined to do this — he was going back to Skin Deep and he was going to face whatever reporters tried to get into his shop.

He was going to tell them that his life was none of their business. He was going to go back and he was going to tell them — he cut off his train of thought. Would he tell them he was bisexual?

When he apparated back to Skin Deep, and sure enough, there was a wall of reporters outside. Harry glared at them. Dean’s enchantments were holding up well enough, an invisible wall that was charmed to only let in customers. 

Harry walked back to his office, trying not to think of the article. The man’s face swam in front of him, the shock of white-blond hair and the tall figure and the way Dean had said _Malfoy._

Harry closed the door to his office tight and pulled out another file, sitting down in his chair and ignoring the empty armchair that he’d come to think of as Malfoy’s, where he always sat curled up, watching Harry with that curiously open expression that was so unlike his past self.

There was a knock. At first it was one — a tap, a question towards intrusion. And then it was a million, a pounding not dissimilar to a hail storm, and then voices joined in, yelling their chorus of questions. 

“Harry Potter!” they yelled, and Harry flinched, backing against his wall even though they were outside the office. He felt trapped. He felt as though he was in a cage, in a muggle zoo like the one he’d been to on Dudley’s birthday, with Dudley standing outside and waiting for him to _do something._ To be _interesting._ They wanted news — wanted confirmation, wanted denial, were hungry for any tiny word he threw into the water, a bucket of chum he wasn’t willing to open.

There were questions now, thrown from every direction, and the ground seemed to tremble beneath him. It started slowly, the kind of thing that Harry could convince himself was merely his imagination, a shaking of his vision instead of a shaking of the _world._ But then it grew. An earthquake, a shattering, a quill that fell to the floor with a sound that was muffled by the feather.

The reporter’s voices died down, except — no, they hadn’t, it was merely a rumbling drowning them out — and Harry’s whole office was shaking with the force of pent up rage, of being an animal in a zoo and not seeing Malfoy and feeling so _stuck_ where he was. The earth quaked beneath him. The floor shook. Books started to fall.

Harry had no idea how far it reached. He briefly hoped — with a fleeting thought that barely had time to cross his anger-zapped mind — that the reporters were being shaken too, sliding across the floor, their quick-quotes quills scratching meaningless lines as they tried to stay upright. 

The door started to splinter. It started with a tiny crack at the bottom that Harry didn’t even notice. A tiny crevice, the kind of crack that could have been there all along, an insignificant little line. But then it grew. It grew, like a spider web reaching out towards the rest of the world, branching along the wood with a sound of splintering that was louder than Harry would have anticipated. 

It cracked — it grew — the door fell into wooden shards that piled at his feet. Harry couldn’t hear anymore. Anger messed with his senses. It took them over one by one until he was a slave to the emotion and the only thing he could do was to hold on for dear life and hope that things wouldn’t fall apart.

His hearing was swamped by pounding blood, his vision blurred around the edges, his touch — a million crackling atoms that seemed to flow around him in a thunderstorm of angry magic.

There they were. It was a crowd of reporters, robes pressed and backs straight, the kind of poise that Malfoy always had except _different_ , because they were leaning away from the door with eyes wide.

The clamor had died down.

Had it?

Harry couldn’t tell. His world felt like it was stuck in those few seconds transition from sleeping to waking, where the world became a question, and everything was blended in with the remnants of dreams that ran through his mind. 

He no longer knew what was real.

The reporters split down the middle, parting like a wave cut through with a boat forcing its way through, and now this _must_ have been hallucination, a fever dream, _something_ to explain the fact that Malfoy was standing there in the middle, magic crackling around him almost equal to the wall around Harry, hair more wild than Harry had ever seen — he was usually so immaculate.

Harry couldn’t tell what was happening. He didn’t know what was going on. He didn’t know, didn’t know, didn’t know. There was lightning spiking down his vision, shocks of light that stretched all the way to the ground. When he closed his eyes, colors swam, lightning ran, the world moved in and out of focus in a wave of confusion. 

“Potter.” There was Malfoy, his hallucination, standing in front of him by the shards of wood from the broken door. Had it actually broken? Harry could no longer tell. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to tell. 

“Potter.” There it was again, more sharp. There was a pair of hands forcing him down into a chair, and armchair — this was _Malfoy’s_ armchair, Harry thought vaguely, and almost laughed at the thought — and Harry closed his eyes because his senses were being swamped, even though that didn’t help as much he’d anticipated.

“Potter, you have to breathe.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I accidentally wrote "Potter" as "otter" about three times in this chapter and I've been laughing for the past ten minutes. I was so tempted to leave it like that


	26. Chapter 26

Harry couldn’t say how long it was before he rejoined the real world, where he was sure of the things under his fingertips and he knew the sounds weren’t merely coming from his brain. It could have been hours, could have been minutes stretched out to feel like such, could have been seconds for all he knew.

The only thing he knew for sure was that he was sitting on his desk and Malfoy was sitting across from him, curled into that armchair that he’d sat in so many times to talk about the tattoo. 

At the thought of it, Harry’s eyes flicked momentarily down to his forearm — the sleeve was pinned at the cuff, enough to show a Narcissus peeking out, the detailed tattoo so strong against his skin. Malfoy seemed to realize where he was looking.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it,” he said. It wasn’t a question — they both knew it was true, no use asking.

“Where did the reporters go?” Harry asked, before realizing that they might not have been there in the first place. “Er — were there reporters here?”

“They’re gone,” Malfoy said simply. “They won’t be coming back to the shop. I think you breaking down the door and causing an earthquake with your anger might have given them enough ammunition, believe it or not.”

Harry stared at him for a second and then felt himself slump to the ground.

“That actually happened,” he whispered, voice hoarse and the sound barely escaping him.

“Unfortunately, yes,” Malfoy said, sounding almost amused. “Your anger knows no bounds, Potter. You should have seen the looks on their faces, really, I must say it was worth it.”

“What are you doing here, Malfoy?” Harry barked out, because he’d only just realized that _Malfoy_ was sitting in front of him. Malfoy, who he’d — who…

Harry didn’t want to finish his thoughts, because he was afraid they’d lead to a place that he wasn’t yet ready to visit. Luckily, he was good at shutting down thoughts and emotions.

“Well. I assumed there would be some kind of natural catastrophe caused by the pure force of your rage, and I wanted to be there to see it,” Malfoy said simply. It started to rain outside — a slight patter at first and then heavier, until all the individual drops blended into one huge roar and they were no longer distinguishable from each other. 

“I’m serious,” Harry ground out, trying not to be incensed by Malfoy’s sarcasm. 

“So am I.”

“ _Malfoy.”_

“I’m serious, Potter. I saw the papers. I knew there would be reporters here, and being you, I knew you’d get angry at them. You’re dreadfully predictable sometimes.”

Harry slumped against the desk, letting his wrists support them even though they were already sore. Everything about him felt sore. Every joint, every muscle, every inch of his body ached with the remnants of magic that had forced themselves out onto the world. He sighed and looked around him, and that’s when he noticed that the office looked spotless, immaculate, not the kind of thing you saw after an earthquake, albeit manmade.

Malfoy seemed to understand his confusion. He had a knack for reading Harry’s questions on his face before Harry was even sure if he had a question, and he pulled one knee to his chest, wrapping both arms around it like it was a life preserver in the middle of the ocean, keeping him from sinking to his doom.

“I put the office back in order,” he said with a dismissive wave. “It wasn’t as bad as it could have been.”

“Why did you come?” Harry asked again, because even though Malfoy had answered, none of it made sense.

“Because we all know you have anger problems, Potter,” Malfoy sighed, rolling his eyes as though this should have been obvious and Harry was being dense. It was refreshing, in a way. “After that article —”

“Don’t talk to me about the article,” Harry spat vehemently, because the word sent back flashes of that night in the club, flashes of pressing up against the stranger while music and lights tangled around them, while a hundred other bodies pushed them together until they were snogging, the way —

“I’m not going to ignore it,” Malfoy said simply. 

“Please do,” Harry snarled. “It isn’t true, anyways. I’m not gay.”

Malfoy shrugged, and it was an offhand shrug, as though brushing off a fly that had irked him — as though to say that Harry’s dilemmas in the paper held no real significance in his life.

“I don’t _care_ Potter,” he said, emphasizing his careless shrug. “I don’t care if you’re gay or if you’re actually a girl or if you’re a bloody werewolf.”

“Not a werewolf,” Harry muttered under his breath, but Malfoy didn’t seem to hear him.

“I think you should go to St. Mungo’s.”

“I’m sorry?” Harry gaped at him, forgetting all about the flashing pictures in the newspaper, black on white on grey. Malfoy folded his arms tighter around his leg, in a way that almost seemed defiant. Defensive, somehow.

“I think you should go to St. Mungo’s,” Malfoy said again, and this time there was a hint of exasperation behind the words, a tiny push that clearly said Harry should understand what he was saying, that this was all a waste of time.

“No,” Harry said firmly. He’d meant to ask _why_ but instead it had come out as _no,_ although he figured his answer might have been more accurate. It didn’t matter why. He didn’t want to go.

“Potter, you can’t get yourself under control,” Malfoy said quietly.

Those words, in any other situation, might have sent Harry into a rage that only proved them further. But there was something about the way Malfoy said them that made him do a double take. He stopped when he had opened his mouth, a tirade of insults ready to pour, and frowned at Malfoy instead.

There was something about his voice — it wasn’t mocking, it wasn’t spiteful, it wasn’t the tone that the reporters would inevitably take when they wrote about his outburst, scrawled across the front pages for days on end.

Instead, it almost seemed… concerned.

“I don’t need to go to St. Mungo’s,” Harry said, more calmly this time. He wanted to prove that he could be normal, that he could have a discussion like any other person without getting irrationally mad. “I have myself under control for the most part. I was fine until the papers came along to snoop into every corner of my life where they don’t belong.”

Malfoy nodded slowly, but still regarded Harry with that hint of a frown.

“You know they won’t stop,” he said simply. “That’s how it works for me and you. We’re both celebrities in our respective ways. People want to hear about us. It doesn’t matter what.”

“I know,” Harry said. He couldn’t keep the annoyance from his voice, but Malfoy didn’t seem to mind, and Harry thought briefly that Malfoy probably felt the same way. He wondered how the papers hadn’t caught onto Narcissa yet, how Malfoy had managed to hide away her madness and silent screams within the walls of the Manor.

Malfoy sighed and leaned back, and Harry did the same, ignoring the strain on his wrists. He stared at Malfoy, taking in his tired face and the pallor that seemed more sickly than usual, and he had the sudden urge to ask —

“How are you?”

Malfoy started, a stutter of his body.

“I’m sorry?” he asked, tilting his head as though certain he’d misheard.

“I said, how are you?” Harry asked, and he felt foolish for asking. Was he supposed to keep quiet? Was Malfoy mad at him for asking after his well being? Harry didn’t know how to convey that his intentions had been good in asking, because it seemed that there was this veil between them that automatically assumed the worst, built up over the first majority of their life.

“I — well —” Malfoy said, eyes still bright and startled. He shifted in the armchair and settled again, fingers tapping an unconscious rhythm against his leg. “I’m okay.”

“Hmm,” Harry said, looking down at the ground.

“Er…how are you?” Malfoy asked, and even without looking at him, Harry could sense his discomfort. He sounded so out of place asking it, as though he never would have considered to ask in the first place, or perhaps as though he thought it wouldn’t have been welcome.

Harry snorted at the question. How was he supposed to answer that.

“Well, the wizarding world thinks I’m gay,” he said by way of explanation.

“Is that really so bad?” Malfoy asked. There was a hint of urgency to the question, as though he was trying to deduce something more from whatever Harry answered, as though whatever he said next was vitally important.

“No — _yes,”_ Harry corrected himself, glaring at the floor. “Because I’m not.”

“Then say that,” Malfoy said calmly. 

“Right, don’t act naïve,” Harry warned him, and he leaned back further on his wrists so he could stare up at the ceiling. He let out a tired exhale, imagining that it was cold enough to show up as a puff of frost. The rain continued to pound its tired drumbeat. Unceasing, the same as always. “They have that picture. They won’t believe what I say.”

“Well…” Malfoy hesitated, looking down at his hands, which were still wrapped around his leg. He picked at his fingernail in a way that made it seem like he didn’t even realize what he was doing. Then he continued, full force ahead, letting the words out in one great rush of air. “Why did you kiss that bloke, then?”

Harry jerked his head up, but Malfoy was resolutely staring at his fingernails still, one hand picking at the other with a determination that couldn’t seem offhand even if he’d wanted it to.

“I was curious,” he muttered. It was true enough. “It just happened.”

“Okay,” Malfoy shrugged. “Then tell the papers that. It’s simple, Potter.”

“I’m bisexual,” Harry blurted out. He didn’t know what it was about Malfoy that seemed to coax words forward from him without his permission. Harry had never even said the word out loud before this, but Malfoy — somehow, Malfoy had convinced him to do exactly that.

“You’re —” Malfoy said, eyes wide now, enough that Harry could see the full circle of his irises, standing out in a stark grey contrast to the rest of his eyes. “Okay,” he recovered himself quickly, slipping back into his usual demeanor, a mix between indifference and cool composure, something that Harry could apparently break through with a well-placed word.

It gave him a tiny burst of satisfaction that he’d broken Malfoy’s cool temporarily.

Harry sighed, the satisfaction quickly dwindling. He thought about how Malfoy would leave soon enough. He still didn’t completely understand why Malfoy had come here in the first place, because knowing Harry would be angry was really no reason to show up at the tattoo shop. He didn’t want this to end again, didn’t want to miss Malfoy anymore.

“Do you want to go get coffee?” Harry blurted out. His mind had been disconnected from his mouth, because he was saying things without thinking about them, letting them spill out into the world without vetting them first, words he’d had no intention of speaking.

Malfoy’s eyes were still wide. Grey. They only grew at the question.

“Not like — not because I’m bisexual,” Harry clarified quickly, and he could feel the bright red slowly spreading across his complexion, and he had the sudden urge to bury himself in the ground and stay there for the rest of his life. “Oh, for Merlin’s — like we used to do when you were trying to figure your tattoo out.”

“Why?” Malfoy asked simply, hand still against his leg where it had previously been drumming a careful beat.

“Er — because you’re my friend?” Harry asked it as a question, feeling completely out of his element, only spurred on by the fact that Malfoy appeared to be out of it as well, floundering around words like he didn’t actually speak English. Malfoy, however, had an incredible knack for recovering from confusion and discomfort.

“Fine, Potter,” he said, emphasizing the last name as though it made him feel better. More sure of himself, perhaps. The walk to the coffee shop was quiet and stilted, the both of them unsure where anything stood between them.

As soon as they got there, though, sitting down at a table and facing each other, things seemed to click slightly and fall into place, like they could pick back up where they’d left off the last time. 

And then Malfoy was off on a tirade about the journalism industry, because — _really, Potter, why do people waste their time on your favorite type of waffle —_ and Harry couldn’t help himself because only now did he understand why he’d missed Malfoy so much, with his long winded rants and insistence that the world had gone mad.

“I don’t even know how they followed me to the club,” Harry said ruefully, slumping against the table to the side of his hot chocolate, closing his eyes and letting the bliss of darkness wash over him.

“You aren’t supposed to know,” Malfoy snorted. “That’s how they work.”

“Yeah, well, I think it should be illegal to follow me around like that,” Harry insisted. 

“You can use a glamor,” Malfoy shrugged. “Then none of their photos would hold any weight even if they did figure out it was you. That’s what I do, and they’ve never gotten any incriminating photos of _me_ when I go to gay clubs.”

“It wasn’t a gay club,” Harry muttered under his breath, and then what Malfoy had said registered further inside his brain, and he jerked his head up to look at Malfoy.

“I didn’t say it was,” Malfoy said, seemingly immune to the turmoil that was racing through Harry in coils of molten metal.

“Hold on, are you —?”

Malfoy looked at him, amusement tracing every one of his features, and he tilted his head to the side. He took another sip of his coffee, slow enough that Harry was sure he wasn’t answering on purpose. He told another drink and then set down the cup.

“Am I what, Potter?”

Harry could tell Malfoy knew what he was asking, but evidently he wasn’t going to answer without hearing the actual words. Harry hated how much it made metaphorical butterflies bat at his insides. That was supposed to be a _cliché,_ it wasn’t actually supposed to happen.

“Are you gay?”

Malfoy laughed at that, elbows on the table to support himself, shaking with mirth. Harry didn’t see what was particularly funny, but seeing Malfoy laugh made him smile until he couldn’t help himself anymore, and then he was laughing even though he wasn’t sure why.

It made him realize that he hadn’t laughed in weeks, perhaps more, and it unfurled a tension that had been lurking inside of him, relaxing into the laughter pouring out of Malfoy’s with an insistence.

“Yes, Potter,” he finally said, catching his breath and taking another sip of coffee, watching Harry over the top of his cup with an amusement he couldn’t seem to hold back, his mouth curling into a smile. 

“How was I supposed to know that?” Harry asked, a laugh still somewhere deep inside of him, glad that his amusement was hiding the flipping of his stomach and the twisting of his insides. He hoped, _prayed,_ to whatever gods were out there that nothing showed on his face, because the revelation had a greater effect on him than he’d intended.

“I never exactly tried to hide it,” Malfoy snorted, and he took another sip of his coffee, still starting at Harry. Did they usually hold eye contact for this long? Harry was a mess of confusion and not understanding signals, and he barely had any idea what was going on anymore. He thought perhaps he should look away, but he had no desire to do that.

“Right,” Harry said, letting out a breath that he’d been waiting to let go of, scared that it would break something — maybe that it would be too loud. “Well.”

They stayed in the coffee shop for far too long, moving on to a debate about the ethics of mind-healing, something that neither of them had extensive knowledge on but something that both of them were content to debate. When they finally stood up, Malfoy’s travelling cloak hanging over his arm, Harry felt a jolt of fear inside of him.

Would this be it? Would it be like last time, where Malfoy left and Harry didn’t see him until he randomly turned up at the shop?

It felt like they couldn’t _acknowledge_ their friendship beyond a few words, and Harry wasn’t sure why. They hid it behind layers of sarcasm and snark, even though it was an undercurrent so strong that neither of them could ignore its existence.

He wasn’t sure why going to a coffee shop together felt like some forbidden thing.

Even so, when Malfoy walked out of the shop — perfect posture, shoes clicking — Harry didn’t say a word.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :)


	27. Chapter 27

Harry refused to open the Prophet the next day. It came to him rolled up against the leg of a beautiful snowy owl who he’d named Arleen — the daughter of the wizard he’d named Hedwig after, in memoriam, a reminder that Hermione thought would be too painful. Harry liked it though. It felt right, in a way.

When he paid the owl, he barely noticed the weight of the coins leave his hand, because the paper felt heavier, with the weight of a thousand stories probably screaming about the return of his madness.

So Harry didn’t open it.

He left it on the table, rolled up into a tight tube that he didn’t need to tell him he was insane, because reading it would surely only prove that further, throwing him into another anger that he couldn’t escape from. So instead, he grabbed his cloak from the door and apparated right to his office in a feat of self-preservation he wouldn’t have thought himself capable of. There were some more files waiting for him, and as soon as he started to write, Dean appeared in his doorway as though summoned.

He leaned against the doorframe, looking concerned.

“Harry —” he began, but Harry cut him off, wanting to forestall any concern before it got carried away.

“Don’t worry,” he said quickly. “I know I got out of control yesterday after the article, and I promise I’m not going to let it happen again. The newspapers don’t have any control over me. I stopped reading them.”

“Ah,” Dean said, looking surprised, and then there was a flash — something akin to thankfulness. He hid something behind his back, and Harry caught a glimpse of black words and moving pictures, the heavy bold title that read _Daily Prophet_ in unmistakable letters. “Okay. Did you get the files I left?”

“What does it say?”

Harry couldn’t help his curiosity. No matter what he had promised himself, he couldn’t help but wonder what the papers said this time, especially if it had compelled Dean to come talk to him.

It must have been bad.

“I doesn’t matter,” Dean said quickly. “Now, the files —”

“Dean.”

“I thought you weren’t going to let the newspapers have control over you anymore,” Dean frowned at Harry, slowly inching backwards from the doorway, as though he could get away without Harry even noticing. “Harry —”

“Just show me, Dean,” Harry said, hearing the worn exhaustion in every word he spoke. He could hear it, like a fraying robe, slowly unraveling, strings hanging out at every loose end. That’s what Harry felt like now. Frayed. Ragged. Coming apart at the seams with nothing to stop him, because he was tumbling into a million pieces that each meant nothing, a collection of parts that used to be something whole but were now mere fragments.

Dean sighed. He looked behind him, as though he was considering making a run for it. He seemed to decide it wasn’t worth it, and he handed the paper to Harry, arm outstretched in a reluctant offering. 

Harry took the paper from him, feeling like it was a mistake from the second he unrolled it, but he couldn’t help himself. All he read was the title, and then he was clenching his fist tight around it, feeling the paper crinkle beneath his hand, wanting with all his heart to tear it into a million pieces and peruse the article at the same time, but the only thing he could think of was getting to Malfoy.

“I’ll be back,” he snarled, and he disapparated without another word, not listening to the hopeless protests that Dean called after him, because he didn’t care what Dean had to say.

This wasn’t about Dean. It was about _Malfoy,_ who must have said something, who must’ve — Harry didn’t know. All he knew was that he couldn’t take this now. 

“Malfoy!” Harry hissed, stepping into the Manor without considering what he was doing, bursting through the door. The house was deathly silent. Harry felt like he’d stepped into a graveyard, where remnants of the dead were hiding behind every corner, where it felt like ghosts were hovering in wait, where every step through the syrupy heaviness of the house felt like he was trying to run through water.

He called the name again, but it was muffled.

“Malfoy!” 

He wasn’t sure if it was his voice that had gotten quieter or if it was the lingering of magic in the house that was weighing him down.

“Malfoy!”

He tried one more time, wanting any response — even an echo would do, but it was as though he’d shouted it into a cavern with no walls, and it disappeared into the endless darkness. 

He apparated back to the shop, feeling sluggish and confused and worried, sinking into the armchair and staring around at the quills and papers strewn across his office. His mind was still in overdrive, his body reeling from the rapid apparition.

_Where had Narcissa been?_

Even if Malfoy wasn’t home, he would have expected her, screaming about intruders or Death Eaters or —

“Harry? Are you okay?” 

That wasn’t Dean. It wasn’t Malfoy. Harry looked up to see the fiery orange-red, to find Ron standing in front of him with his Auror robes pooling around his feet.

“What are you doing here?” Harry asked, looking from Ron to the rest of his office wide-eyed, trying to understand what was happening. Everything looked exceptionally normal. Perhaps his office was neater than usual, a product of Malfoy’s spells, but other than that nothing seemed amiss. Why would _Ron_ be here?

“Malfoy’s in St. Mungo’s,” Ron frowned, looking at Harry carefully and standing back slightly as though he was expecting an explosion, or more likely, an explosion of Harry’s anger. Harry took a deep breath, and then the words registered a moment later, like the dark magic from Malfoy’s house was still all around him, affecting his reception.

“He’s what?”

“There was an attack on his Manor,” Ron said carefully, looking down at the paper clenched in Harry’s hand. “Because of the article.”

“Is he okay?” Harry asked frantically, because that was the only thing that mattered anymore. Anger fell to the wayside — everything seemed to fall away, and all he could focus on was Ron’s face, on the minuscule shifts of his demeanor, on the way he failed to respond. “Ron, is he _okay?”_

“He’s fine,” Ron said, seeming to get his voice back. “He’s recovering, we got him to St. Mungo’s fast enough. 

Harry cursed under his breath and then tried to steady himself, looking back towards Ron. 

“Take me there,” he said, barely waiting for a response. “I want to see him.”

“Harry —”

_“Take me there,”_ Harry said. He didn’t wait for an answer, instead he grabbed Ron’s arm, waiting to be whisked away to St. Mungo’s. There was a pause, where Ron seemed to realize it would be hopeless to argue, and then they vanished into the twisting press of apparition, rematerializing inside the lobby of St. Mungo’s.

“Follow me,” Ron said, sounding exhausted. He walked quickly down the corridor and made his way to the lift, pressing the button for the third floor with his lips pressed tight together. Harry ignored him. He was too worked up to deal with Ron’s disapproval, because all he could think about was that whatever had happened to Malfoy was _his_ fault. Ron seemed to sense his discomfort because he tried to reach out in a gesture that was probably supposed to be comforting.

“You’re sure he’s okay?” Harry asked as he hurried after Ron, their footsteps echoing in his ears as they walked. “He’s —”

“Harry, he’s fine,” Ron said, calm and exhaustion warring in his voice. “I was there when we got the call. He’s not seriously injured, he’s stable at the moment.”

Harry realized from a distance how desperate he must sound, but he didn’t have the energy to do anything about it because he needed to know that Malfoy was okay. All he could do was put one foot down then the other, hearing the echo through the stone, wondering if this was what it felt like to everyone who was entering the hospital — a corridor to their death, a line to their doom.

That’s what the hospital felt like. The cloying smell, the signature scent of medical potions filling the corridors. 

It _felt_ like death, like this might be the smell that greeted you when you left the world. Harry flinched from it, but he kept walking because he had to. _He’s fine,_ Harry reminded himself. That’s what Ron had said.

When Harry got to the room, entering it felt like the hardest thing he’d done, and he wondered how it was possible that he’d come to care about what happened to Malfoy. Sure, maybe he’d cared before as a point of interest, but he hadn’t _cared,_ hadn’t been invested like this.

It almost felt as though he was inexorably tied to Malfoy, not dissimilar to his reliance on breathing, on blinking, on functions he could never escape from for as long as he lived.

“Malfoy?”

He was sitting up in the hospital bed, and it looked like he was arguing with the nurse. It barely looked like he’d been injured with the way he was fighting back, eyes ablaze. Harry could tell even from a distance.

“Potter,” Malfoy uttered, and he lurched forward, arm reaching out instinctively like a zombie in one of those muggle movies that Dudley always loved to watch. “Potter, please, you need to —”

“Calm down,” Harry said, talking to himself and Malfoy simultaneously, trying to talk down the swirl of thoughts inside of him and the clear panic in Malfoy. He walked over, leaving Ron to stand in the doorway reluctantly. He still wasn’t speaking. “Are you okay? What happened?”

Malfoy didn’t seem to hear him.

“They took her,” he gasped out, his voice coming and going with his breath, ragged in every sense of the word, eyes wide enough that Harry could see the bloodshot look to them, the webbed veins of red that stood out so prominently against the white of his eyes. 

“Took who?” Harry asked, looking back to Ron in askance, but his face was a mask of stone.

“Mother,” Malfoy gasped out, trying to move again, but the nurse pushed him back down. He complied reluctantly. The fight didn’t drain out of him, but he allowed himself to slump back against the bed, as though conserving his energy for when he’d next need it. He looked _exhausted._ There was no other word for it, for the dripping bruises under his eyes, the ones that seemed to reach all the way back to his sockets. And yet, his eyes were open wider than Harry had ever seen.

“Narcissa?”

“They took her,” Malfoy said again, as though he didn’t quite believe the words himself. He jerked again and the nurse held out an arm. “They think she — they think _I —”_ He broke off, his voice stopping as suddenly as it had started, his gaze fixed on a point right over Harry’s shoulder.

Harry turned to find Ron standing with his arms crossed. Expressionless. Undecipherable. Not like the usual joking way he was.

“Ron, what’s happening?”

Finally, Ron dragged his gaze over to Harry, as though reluctantly — it was slow, stuck on Malfoy like a magnet at first, then slowly ticking towards Harry.

“They ambushed us,” he said finally, not looking at Malfoy. Harry could feel the tension crackling through the air, the way Malfoy was sitting bolt upright. The perfect posture he’d been raised with. Ironic, Harry thought, that he didn’t forget it even when he was injured.

Harry turned to look at Malfoy, but now he was the expressionless one, a blank canvas that Harry couldn’t take anything away from.

“They what?”

“Don’t you see?” Ron hissed under his breath. He shook his head once and let out a frustrated breath, grabbing Harry’s arm with a vice in his fingers. He nodded jerkily towards the door, stepping just outside and bringing Harry with him, nails still tight against his skin, a pink blooming where they dug in. “It was a setup. They _lured_ us to the Manor.”

“What?” Harry asked, not following anything. “You said they were attacked —”

“ _Malfoy_ said they were attacked,” Ron scoffed, shaking his head as though Harry was being stupid. “All we have is his word.”

“But —”

“This is why you aren’t an Auror anymore,” Ron cried out, exasperation bubbling over. “You’ll defend him until the death, won’t you? You and your strange obsession — it’s like sixth year all over again, Harry, and everyone can see it but you! For Merlin’s sake, you came to our flat because you _missed_ him. And then what does he do? He and his _mother_ lure us to the Manor and attack us.”

Harry couldn’t tell if Ron was doing it on purpose, pressing all the right buttons to get a rise in Harry, perhaps to _prove_ that he was unfit.

All he knew was that he was struggling very hard to tamp down the sudden surge inside of him, the magic that ached, that _yearned,_ for a release. He clenched his teeth together, wondering if he could bite through the solid bone.

“They attacked you?” he asked, glancing back towards the doorway. Ron’s arm had slipped from his arm, and he looked more tired now, almost as much as Malfoy.

“Harry, you shouldn’t get involved with this,” he said quietly.

“I already am.”

“You don’t have to be.” His mouth tipped into a tiny amused grin. “Malfoy’s incapa—”

“Tell me what happened,” Harry insisted, quelling any joke that Ron might be about to make with a look, because nothing about Malfoy lying in a hospital bed was _funny_ to him.

Ron sighed and looked at the ground. He seemed to know Harry wouldn’t give up on this.

“Narcissa Malfoy tripped the alarm and summoned the Aurors,” he said, stating facts like he was reading a case file to Robards instead of talking to his longest friend. “We showed up, a team of four of us, to find Malfoy injured. A simple curse, but an uncomfortable one. While we were talking to him and trying to make sure nothing happened, we were attacked from behind.”

“Oh,” Harry said, a sweeping relief coming over him. “Well, that makes sense, Narcissa sees everyone as the enemy, she was attacked a while back and there was a curse put on her to make her like this and —” He let out a panicked laugh, looking towards Ron and wondering why he wasn’t laughing too.

Didn’t he see that this wasn’t actually a setup?

“Harry, I think you should go home,” he said simply, dismissing Harry in enough words. “You’ve had a hard month, mate.”

“No, Ron, don’t you see? Malfoy’s innocent, you can ask him under Veritaserum, I promise you it wasn’t —”

“Harry,” Ron said, firmly. So disapproving that it was like standing in Robards' office all over again. “You know Veritaserum is useless for legal purposes, especially with the likes of Malfoy. He can probably get past Veritaserum more quickly than you can give it to him. Besides, Malfoy cast the curse on himself. We checked his wand. Nobody broke into the Manor.”

“No,” Harry insisted, “There’s a simple explanation, just ask him and —”

_“Harry.”_

“Stop interrupting me!” Harry burst out, a tiny slip of anger escaping with a yell, and he turned his back on Ron, feeling the satisfaction writhe through him. He couldn’t look at Ron. Ron wasn’t trying to help him, Ron was working _against_ him.

Ron thought he was incapable of rational thought when it came to Malfoy. But when had Harry’s hunches ever been wrong? 

He took a deep breath and ignored the pleading behind him, closing the door and shutting out the voice with a click of the lock, like flicking a switch. Ron wasn’t trying to find out the truth, and if he wouldn’t, then Harry would.

Justice.

“Right,” he said, turning to Malfoy. “Tell me what really happened.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YOU GUYS!! I've gotten like 10 of the sweetest comments today and I love each and every one of you so much, I've been smiling for like the whole past hour!! Thank youuuuuuuu <3


	28. Chapter 28

“What _happened_ is of no consequence, Potter,” Malfoy said bitterly, looking as though he wanted to spit, like there was something sour in his mouth. The nurse was standing warily in the corner, temporarily satisfied with Malfoy’s calm. “They’ll never believe my word. They won’t investigate further, they have what they wanted in the first place.”

“They have to,” Harry insisted, and Malfoy gave him a smile that was patronizing, as though Harry was still that tiny child under the stairs, drawing in dust.

“No. Ever since you spoke for me, they’ve been trying to find a way to toss me back in Azkaban. They’ll be thrilled. Even if they knew what really happened, catching the last Death Eater? That’s front page news, Potter. Imagine the morale booster for the wizarding world.” He spoke it all with such finality, as though the case was already solved, already closed, already a file in Robards’s cabinet marked with green.

“No,” Harry said. If there was one thing he could be, it was stubborn. 

“Yes, Potter,” Malfoy said, exhaustion leaking into his voice, a steady drip of _tired._

“There are ways to prove that you didn’t do anything wrong, we can figure it out and —”

“Weren’t you listening to me?” Malfoy asked, cutting him off with a frown. “They have what they want. They don’t care about proof.”

“They have to listen if I show them.”

“You were suspended from the Aurors because you’re too reckless,” Malfoy said, sounding even more exasperated than Ron. “Your recent meltdown in the tattoo shop is all over the papers. Don’t you see now, Potter? You have the crazy stamp too. They can ignore every word you say, because you’ve gone mad in a fit of post-war grief and rage. A great story. The proof for that one is everywhere.”

“Ron will listen,” Harry said confidently, glancing back towards the door with a new swoop of hope.

“Will he?” The way Malfoy said it made it sound like he wasn’t even asking a question, merely bringing something to Harry’s attention. 

Harry didn’t respond.

“We’re outcasts now,” Malfoy snorted. “Join the club.”

Harry looked over towards the Nurse momentarily. She was standing in the corner, lurking under the shadows, and Harry gestured towards her, telling her to leave. He didn’t need another eavesdropper bringing his life to the papers. They had enough ammunition. More than enough, according to Malfoy. 

“You can’t give up like that,” Harry said, the swell of anger feulling his thoughts for the first time instead of quelling them. “That’s what you did with your tattoo, and look where giving up got you.”

Malfoy let out a breath.

“They already have her on charges,” he said, voice shaking suddenly, a transition from composed to terrified so quickly that there was no inbetween on the scale. No sliding. Here then there, quick as that. “She’s already in Azkaban.”

“I’ll get her out,” Harry said instantly. “You aren’t actually guilty of faking an attack, I assume?”

“No,” Malfoy said ruefully. “Grabbed my wand from behind. It was a good move. Either they were trying to frame me, or they knew the Aurors would do the framing for them.” He paused and rubbed at his eyes, only serving to redden them further. “Although I suppose I’m slightly culpable. What I did with those reporters kind of kickstarted — well. That article.”

Harry snorted and shook his head, thinking back to the article.

“All of it is ridiculous,” he said, trying to inject as much confidence and truth into the words as he could. 

“I didn’t read it,” Malfoy smiled, a dancing amusement on his face. “I only caught the title before someone was on me, screaming about coercion and love potions.”

“Oh trust me,” Harry said, realizing the paper was still clenched tight in his fist. “You’re going to want to read this.” He shook it out and cleared his throat dramatically, smoothing out a wrinkle in the paper to reveal their faces looking up at the camera.

He turned the paper to show Malfoy, who seemed momentarily distracted from his position, exactly as Harry had been hoping he would.

“Right,” Harry began. “Er — let’s see. _Mr. Potter, the golden boy and savior of our world, was recently revealed to be gay in an exclusive —_ blah, blah, blah — _but in a shocking new development, Draco Malfoy, Death Eater extraordinaire appears to have developed a fondness for Mr. Potter that many of us share, with a sinister twist. Love potions are a common but powerful potion, easy to access for those with links to the underground market. Those like Draco Malfoy, Death Eater whose tastes for deception and dark magic seem to linger despite being pardoned on house arrest thanks to the testimony of none other than Mr. Potter himself. It now appears that Draco Malfoy and Mr. Potter are in a close romantic relationship, and we fear for the welfare of our Mr. Potter. What form of coercion did the Death Eater use this time?”_ Harry trailed off, eyes skimming the rest. “And it continues on page 46 with a list of possible methods you could have used.”

Malfoy was grinning when Harry finally lowered the paper, just enough that his eyes peeked over the top.

“A close romantic relationship, huh?” he asked, one eyebrow raised in that elegant way that made Harry sure he’d spent hours in front of a mirror practicing that exact look. It was such a posh, such a _pureblood,_ such a _Malfoy_ thing that it almost made Harry laugh.

“Apparently so. A love potion from the underground market.”

“Well, my love,” Malfoy said, and Harry tried not to let that twist his insides, wished his heart wasn’t beating a tiny bit faster, working harder to keep him alive. He wished he could stop thinking about those words in a different context.

“Love with a sinister twist,” Harry corrected, trying to spare himself from complete embarrassment. “Don’t forget your list of fifty possible coercion methods.”

“Ah, how could I forget that?” Malfoy grinned, leaning back against the bed and running a hand through his hair. Harry tried not to stare. Then he laughed and shook his head, rolling his eyes — how did even that look elegant. “It’s pathetic, really. I think I’d know if you were in love with me.”

Harry was reading too much into everything Malfoy said, because somehow even those words felt like they had some additional significance behind them, almost like Malfoy was — asking something. Harry shook himself and tried to clear the fog from his mind, even though it clung to him steadfast, draped over the tendrils of thought and keeping him away from rationality.

Instead, he laughed, trying to go along with it. This was all one big joke, he reminded himself, shaking himself back to the present and not allowing his mind to dwell.

“So,” he said, after Malfoy’s laughter had subsided. 

“So.”

“I’m not going to rest until I figure out a way to get you and your mother off the charges,” Harry muttered, not sure if the words were intended for Malfoy or for himself.

Malfoy heard them anyway and he pushed himself up with one arm as he heard the words, shifting so he could frown disapprovingly at Harry in a way that didn’t hold much weight as he was lying in a hospital bed.

“Yes you will,” he said sharply. “If you end up in a hospital bed beside me because you’re not sleeping —”

“I’ll take Dreamless Sleep,” Harry said carelessly, waving a hand and trying not to think of the alluring potion that was sitting in the back of his cupboard, spelled away with a charm Hermione had carefully put up after the last time he was in the hospital. Somehow it had a pull over him even from here, enough miles away that it should have been powerless.

“I’m serious Potter,” Malfoy said with a frown still set into his face. “Don’t do this to yourself again.”

“Do what?”

“Use a mystery or — or _challenge_ as an excuse to hurt yourself. You’re destructive, and you think this is a valid reason to —”

“I’m destructive?” Harry burst out, realizing the irony of the words even as the anger did its best to burst forth, threatening everything around him. 

“Yes, Potter. You destroy your office — unintentionally, I know — but you also destroy yourself, and I’m not sure if that’s so unintentional, no matter what you might tell yourself. I’m not sure why you do it, but you do.”

Harry glared at him, determined not to hear any truth in the words, because Malfoy was trying to egg him on, that was the reason behind this all. He felt a tug in his gut, a turgid wash of leftover anger.

“Why would I try to destroy myself?”

“People do strange things,” Malfoy shrugged, looking down at his arm unconsciously, at the sprawling Narcissus flowers that were still as clear as ever. It felt as though Harry was permanently scrawled across Malfoy’s arm, as though he’d left his mark in his own strange way. He wasn’t trying to destroy himself. He was trying to pull himself up, like he’d done by getting a job at the tattoo shop. Couldn’t everyone see that?

“I’m not going to have this argument,” Harry said finally, because he had better things to be doing.

Malfoy shrugged again. “If you end up here —”

“I won’t.”

“I think you’re falling apart, Potter.” He said it so calmly, like he was stating a fact instead of insulting Harry’s very being. “I think you’re coming apart at the seams but you don’t want to admit it, and you’re trying to cover it up. I think you’re going to unravel if you aren’t careful. So be careful.”

It wasn’t a request, it was a command, firm in its order.

“Since when have I not been careful?” Harry asked, unable to hold back the smile that inevitably came with those words, and Malfoy scoffed, shaking his head.

“I’m serious,” he said, and his face set into something that certainly resembled serious, traveling over Harry. “Be careful.”

“I will,” Harry said, and the words sounded empty even to his own ears. He didn’t bother promising. Too much hassle for something that was so easy to break.

With that, he walked out of the room, closing the door behind him. Ron was standing a little ways down the hallway and talking to a nurse, red hair standing out prominently against the rest of the whitewashed hospital. Supposed to be calm, Harry assumed, although it was quite the opposite in his opinion.

“Ron,” Harry said as he approached, not caring if he was interrupting a conversation.

“Harry,” Ron said, and why did he sound so tired? He hadn’t done anything but convict someone innocent. He should be on top of the world. That’s what the Aurors all wanted, according to Malfoy. A chance to convict him. 

“I need to talk to you,” Harry said desperately. “Please, Ron.” He implored with his gaze, unspoken words hanging between them. _I’m your best friend._ He wondered vaguely if that was still true. 

Ron sighed and looked him over, as though his appearance was the deciding factor in all this. 

“Give me ten minutes,” Harry said — he was begging, he realized, and perhaps that should have made him feel more ashamed than it did, but all he cared about was whether or not it worked. 

“Ten minutes,” Ron said finally, and Harry held out his arm. Ron took it, the prints of his fingernails still scattered haphazardly across Harry’s skin. They disapparated with a pop, the both of them spinning off and reappearing in Harry’s flat. Extraordinarily clean, thanks to Malfoy.

“I promise you he’s innocent,” Harry said, jumping straight in.

“Hmm,” Ron said, collapsing on the couch and burying his face in his hands momentarily before looking up and swiping a hand over his face in an afterthought, a trailing palm that was evidently supposed to erase his exhaustion. It didn’t work. 

“His mother — Narcissa — she was cursed a while back for being a Death Eater. It’s a curse that makes her relive her memories from the war, so she lashes out without even realizing it.”

Ron looked at him and shook his head, taking in a deeper sigh than before.

“Harry, look — even if I believed you, although that’s unlikely enough considering your strange obsession with Malfoy — you realize you’re only incriminating him more, right? He got us to the Manor so he could attack us without technically being responsible, at the hands of somebody helpless, no less.”

Harry gaped at him. This wasn’t Ron. This wasn’t the person who had snuck out with him in the middle of the night to investigate the Mirror of Erised in the hallway during Hogwarts. This wasn’t the Ron who’d trudged after them for weeks, camping in abandoned parts of a forest. This was — this was the newspaper, grasping onto the barest of threads to paint their picture with no regard for what Harry said.

“Who are you?” he asked, staring at Ron.

“Who am _I?_ Harry, who are _you?_ You were always the one so convinced that Malfoy was up to something, and now the moment he is, you’re off convinced that he’s innocent. You break up with my sister, you miss Malfoy — I don’t know who you are really, and you can only blame the war so much. We all have to deal with it. We don’t all lose complete control of ourselves.”

Ron was pushing everything exactly wrong, saying each word with a perfect twist so that Harry flinched, so that anger bubbled around the height of his throat.

“You’re not even giving him a chance!” Harry shouted, the walls of his flat barely quaking, almost as though they were used to the tearing noise of his yells. “He deserves more than that!”

“Malfoy?” And now Ron was yelling too, more angry than Harry could ever remember hearing him. “He fought for the side that killed my brother, Harry! Fred is _gone_ because of things he did. He almost killed _me,_ Harry, do you remember that? He almost killed Katie! Almost — almost —”

“I know the things he did and almost did,” Harry snarled, and he did know, too well. He sounded feral. He felt feral. He felt animal, less than human, like he didn’t think — he only felt. And now there was only one feeling. That was him, whittled down to the essence of his being, to the core of what it meant to be Harry Potter.

Unbidden anger.

That was all there was, and in his crazed state, he didn’t recognize Ron as a friend. Instead Ron was the prey. Harry was the barest of animals. He didn’t recognize that this was a feeling he’d felt before, didn’t understand that the other time he’d been like this it had resulted in him lashing out, had carved a scar into Ginny’s ankle that she still harbored. 

He was predator, Ron was prey.

He didn’t have to move to attack, because his magic did it for him, coiling up into a snake that slithered around him, a slithering motion that encompassed his entire body.

And then it _struck,_ and Harry was left standing motionless, watching — as hopeless as Malfoy — and the magic sunk its fangs into Ron, biting down on flesh and draining him of his essence. Harry didn’t move. He couldn’t.

It was over like that, the snap of fingers, and then the world went black without an inkling of warning. One second it was attack, the next second it was black. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My only love is procrastination


	29. Chapter 29

Harry woke up to see white walls around him. At first, his thought leapt to the hospital. Rather than disoriented, rather than questioning — he immediately thought he’d been committed.

Except then a face shifted above him, and it wasn’t a nurse. Not a doctor. No, instead it was a face that had a tattoo trailing down right below the neckline, a branching tree that Dean had gotten the first day he started the shop, growing leaves and shedding them in tune with the seasons.

“Dean?” he croaked out, and he sounded pathetic even to his own ears. He _should_ be in the hospital was his next thought. The past hours were fuzzy, and Harry wasn’t sure they’d even happened. He felt like he’d drunk ten gallons of alcohol, had been wiped into the dense black shutter of forgetfulness. From the expression on Dean’s face, whatever had happened wasn’t good.

“Ron’s okay,” were his first words. And then his face moved out of focus. Then back. A pendulum, neither here nor there, but both at the same time. Harry realized with a start that he was pacing.

“I — what?” he asked weakly, hearing the words objectively but not actually understanding them. 

“Ron,” Dean said, his footsteps coming sharper and landing right next to Harry’s head with a stinging slap. “ _Ron,_ Harry. Your friend? My girlfriend’s brother? The one you attacked?”

Harry’s brain couldn’t think that hard. It was as though the world was a fog. He knew it existed somewhere behind the haze, but he couldn’t quite see it and he wasn’t sure how to get through the fog. All he knew was that Dean wasn’t as happy as usual. 

“Get up,” he barked, as though to prove Harry’s point. “Harry, get up _now.”_

Harry got up and looked around him, at the tilt to the world and the feeling that he’d stepped directly off of one of those Muggle roller coasters, everything sliding on a different axis than usual.

“Whas’appening?” he asked, not caring enough to define his words properly, because he was sure Dean would understand what he was trying to say. 

Dean was glaring at him, still pacing in a way that made Harry feel even more dizzy than he had before. Then he collapsed to the bench in the corner, burying his head in his hands.

“Do you remember attacking Ron?” he asked, and everything about the hunch in his shoulders and the slump in his voice detailed a hundred different kinds of tired. “Because you did. You got angry, like you do, and you attacked him. It could have been bad if he hadn’t summoned an Auror. I got you out of there, but — _Merlin,_ Harry.”

There it was. The chink in the wall that he’d needed, the key to unlocking the flood of memories he hadn’t wanted in the first place.

“I — _fuck,”_ Harry cursed as he saw it replay in his mind’s eye again and again, a loop that he couldn’t seem to escape from. Ron, face split wide in shock — it was his expression that hurt the most, like he never would have expected this from Harry. Even though he _should_ have, Harry swore under his breath. He should have expected this and a million times worse.

“Yeah,” Dean said, and it came to Harry whisper-quiet. Like he was someone even _Dean_ had to whisper around now. He was a bomb, activated by something even he didn’t know of.

“Ron’s okay?” he asked, even though Dean had already answered it, because his thoughts refused to be gathered.

“Physically,” Dean said simply. “He’s okay.”

“What about Malfoy?” Harry asked, barely realizing what he’d said before the question was out of his mouth and in the open. Dean took a deep breath.

“Malfoy’s in custody,” he said, “Along with his mother. He’s made a full recovery, but he’s most likely going to be sentenced to Azkaban.”

“What?” Harry burst out, and Dean faltered a step, looking at him warily.

Harry’s stomach clenched tight, like a fist, his insides faltering as much as Dean’s step. Dean was _scared_ of him, he realized. Scared that maybe he’d be the next victim in these attacks. Harry wasn’t sure what to say to reassure him.

“I said, Malfoy’s probably going to Azkaban. He attempted to attack the Aurors, didn’t you hear?”

“No, he —” Harry didn’t have it in him to explain Malfoy’s innocence again. “When’s the trial?”

Dean looked at him strangely, head tilted. He didn’t respond. He sat on his bench and regarded Harry, not saying a word.

“What?” Harry asked, because he could always sense when there was information being withheld, and this was one of those times. “Dean, what?”

“Harry…” He trailed off and looked away, pursing his lips and letting his eyes dart away like he was waiting for something else to focus on.

“When’s the trial?” Harry asked, more insistence. He almost wanted to scare Dean.

“I don’t know if there’s going to be one,” Dean burst out suddenly. “He’s a Death Eater who tried to attack the Ministry. There wasn’t much of a case there. There’s evidence from his wand, there’s…” His words faded into silence again, and he shrugged, studying the back of his hand where there was a tiny quaffle. He flicked it off one finger and it disappeared up his arm, right under the edge of his sleeve.

Harry stared at it. The fog was back, but this time it was just a cloud of helplessness. 

“No trial,” he said finally, hollow and mirthless. “None.”

Dean shrugged. “I’m the wrong person to ask.”

“I have to talk to Ron,” Harry said immediately, and he could get through the fog because he had something to solve now. “There’s no way Malfoy’s going to get convicted without a trial.” He stood up, glad for the adrenaline in his legs that willed away the otherwise jello of his muscles, as though they’d atrophied in such a short time.

A hand closed around his wrist, paintbrush tattoo drawing strokes up to curl around Dean’s arm.

“I don’t know if this is a good idea, Harry,” he said quietly, and the name said everything. He was trying to be gentle. Like he was talking to a child. Patronizing. Careful.

“Fuck you,” Harry said, feeling only the slightest tick of guilt that was immediately overshadowed. There were more important things for him to be worrying about. 

Ron, for one.

He made his way to the hospital more quickly than he’d been anticipating — although requesting audience with Ron was a different story altogether.

“He’s in a fragile state,” the nurse said with a yawn, as though she was nearing the end of a shift and couldn’t care less about what state Ron was in. “So you can’t visit him now. Come back later and we’ll see.”

“I have to visit him now,” Harry said. It wasn’t a question.

“Can’t,” the nurse said, tilting her head in a way that was always pleading, like she was begging him not to give her a hard time. “Not allowed.”

“I’m Harry Potter,” Harry said finally. Usually he was reluctant to pull that card, the one that had always seemed to work with Robards. But now there was a different reaction. A fear, then a shuttering over her face, like she didn’t want to reveal her fear, like it was a weakness he might take advantage of it.

“So you are,” she said, rubbing her eyes. “I’m sorry, I’m very tired.”

“So can I go?” Harry asked impatiently, jerking his thumb towards the hallway that wound on behind her. 

She looked at him, bemused, and then spoke in that same patronizing way that Dean had adopted towards the end of their conversation.

“I _can’t,”_ she said, drawing out the word and giving him an exasperated smile. Not smiling with him, smiling _at_ him, if there was such a thing. Harry frowned at her and then ran his hand purposefully through his hair, pushing away the locks to reveal the lightning of his scar.

“I have to see him now,” Harry re-emphasized, copying her patronizing tone because he couldn’t help it. “I’m Harry Potter.”

“I heard you,” she sighed. “Frankly, don’t care who you are. Not allowed.”

Harry glared at her.

“Sorry,” he said finally, and with a flick of her wrist that she didn’t have time to defend against, he froze her in her place and stepped by, not looking back once. He was used to this kind of thing from his time as an Auror, from the years he’d been carefully groomed for the war.

Instead he went onwards, bursting into spell damage without a look backwards. When he found Ron, he was leaning back against a pillow with his eyes half-closed, like he couldn’t decide whether or not he was supposed to be asleep. Even with impaired vision, he tensed the moment Harry stepped into the doorway. Perhaps he could tell who it was just from the shadow. Maybe Harry was so feared now that people tended to freeze up when they saw any shadow in their doorway.

“Harry,” Ron said, and the word was so distorted that Harry couldn’t make heads or tails of the emotions that were probably buried somewhere within it. Fear, maybe. Confusion. Anger. Pity. Worry. Harry didn’t know, he couldn’t tell, and he didn’t particularly care at the moment.

“You have to give him a trial,” Harry said, barely able to recognize anything else except that they were planning on committing Malfoy to Azkaban without giving him a fair chance.

Ron stared at him, and now — oh, now, his expression was recognizable. Disbelief.

“You’re kidding me,” he said, nodding slowly and poking his tongue into the corner of his mouth, as though to say _typical._

“No,” Harry insisted. “He deserves the right —”

“You attack me,” Ron cut him off, and his nod had turned into a head shake, eyes stuck on Harry’s face regardless of where his head moved. “You attack me, hurt me, get me sentenced to the hospital. Me.” He pointed towards himself, and then as though to reemphasize, he jabbed another finger at his chest. “ _Me._ I was your best friend, Harry. And then, not only do you come sauntering into the hospital, but you don’t bother to apologize. No, why would you do that? Why would your own friend’s welfare be more important than _Malfoy?”_

The way he said Malfoy’s name made Harry bristle so much that he didn’t even care for what Ron was saying, only how he was saying it.

“Malfoy’s my friend,” Harry said, and he could hear the defensive tone in his voice from a mile away. He may as well have been a toddler, crossing his arms and stomping his foot and arguing for a later bedtime, not that he’d ever had those liberties as a child.

“Oh, right,” Ron laughed, mirthless and sharp. “Pardon me if I forgot about that. I was too focused on the fact that he bullied us for the first half of his life and then joined a supremacist group because apparently that wasn’t enough for him. But yeah, no, you’re completely right. His welfare should go above mine. It’s not like I stood there for you when you were raging on late into the night and —” he broke off and looked at Harry once, before scoffing and shaking his head. He looked sour, like he was about to spit on the ground at Harry’s feet. “You know what? Forget it.”

Harry wasn’t sure what to say. In theory, somewhere at the very farthest corner of his mind, he knew Ron was right. He knew Ron had every right to be angry, not only because of what Harry had done to him. But somehow his brain was still stuck on Malfoy.

Malfoy, who was locked away and innocent and facing the rage of the world, while Ron was sitting here in a comfortable hospital bed, part of a task force that didn’t even need proof before committing people to their destinies.

He hated Ron and his perfect life, complaining about injustice while he committed injustice of his own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If all goes well, I should finish posting today!! This is the longest thing I've ever written and I have no clue how that happened


	30. Chapter 30

Harry stewed in his flat, curled up on the couch with his eyes squeezed closed, tight enough that not an inkling of light would slip through. 

He was waiting for the Dreamless Sleep to kick in, the familiar tick in the back of his mind counting down. He didn’t want to be distracted by nightmares now, not when he had a million things to figure out, the least of which was how to fall asleep. Malfoy was stuck behind bars, awaiting Azkaban, no trial, no chance.

Harry didn’t know where to turn next. Hermione was married to Ron. Dean was dating Ginny, who was siblings with Ron. Everyone he knew connected back to Ron, who was firmly set against Malfoy and now — firmly set against Harry.

The answer didn’t hit him until a few moments later when the potion already had him in its grip.

_Luna._

The second he woke up from sleeping, only slightly disoriented from the dose, he apparated to Luna’s flat. There were a variety of strange plants waving outside, reminding Harry of the Hogwarts greenhouses no matter how much he didn’t want to remember Hogwarts.

“Harry?” 

There was her voice, floating in a strange way — and no surprise that she knew it was him before even seeing, because she always seemed to know things, more aware of her surroundings than anyone else.

“Luna, are you busy?” Harry asked, carefully making his way towards her voice.

“Not particularly.” Her head poked out from behind a tall winding sculpture that twisted almost all the way to the ceiling, made of a glittering black substance that Harry couldn’t place. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know what it was. She was wearing goggles, and her eyes were magnified behind them, bugging out to stare at Harry.

“Is it okay if I sit?” Harry asked, looking towards the table, which was also covered with an odd assortment of objects he’d never seen before.

“Of course!” she said brightly, moving out from behind the sculpture to take a seat across from Harry. “I haven’t seen you in such a long time!”

“Yeah,” Harry said, and somehow Luna always managed to make him feel guilty. He wondered if she got visitors often. Wondered if she was lonely. He resolved to stop by more in the future, because he did tend to neglect friendships. “Sorry about that. I just — I wasn’t sure who else to come to.”

Luna nodded and glanced at something behind Harry, before refocusing on his face and smiling brightly. She didn’t speak, just waited for him to speak first. 

“Well, it’s…about Malfoy,” Harry said, letting out a breath that seemed to get caught every time he tried to talk about Malfoy.

“Oh!” Luna said, eyes wide. “Draco Malfoy?”

“Yeah,” Harry said, nodding slowly — realizing that he’d never referred to Malfoy as _Draco._ Somehow that threw him off momentarily.

“What about him?” she asked. “The papers said you two were dating, but I could see the nargles around your head in the photo, you obviously haven’t talked about your feelings yet.” She looked dreamily up at the ceiling, her eyes seeming to focus in on something and follow it around in a path. Harry was momentarily disconcerted.

“I — what? No, we aren’t… that’s not what I came to talk about,” he spluttered, running a hand through his hair in unconscious imitation of his father.

“Okay,” she said, not seeming thrown off in the slightest.

“They want to put him in Azkaban,” Harry said, wondering if he would ever stop feeling angry. “And they aren’t going to give him a trial, even though he didn’t do anything wrong.”

“People think you’re crazy,” Luna said matter-of-factly. “Is that why you came to me? They all think I’m crazy too.”

“You’re not crazy,” Harry said, looking at Luna.

“Oh, I know,” she said happily. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a little crazy. Just means we don’t participate in the world like everyone else. Besides, it would be a boring world without crazy.”

“I — yeah,” Harry said, thrown off once more. “I don’t know how to help Malfoy.”

“But you want to,” she nodded. “And you’re the only one, aren’t you? Nobody else cares about him.”

“They don’t see that he’s changed,” Harry burst out. “Even Dean or Hermione! They act all nice around him, but you can see it in their eyes, they don’t _really_ think he’s worth — worth caring about. So they’re going to stand by and watch while he’s sentenced. I can tell.”

“Hmm,” Luna said, considering. “It’s hard to care about pictures and articles like they’re people.”

Harry sighed, and pushed one hand into his face, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. It still clung to him, Dreamless, and he could feel that this was the start. He knew he couldn’t take it again. Not tonight.

“How can’t they see that everyone deserves a trial?” he asked frantically. “Do you think this is fair?”

Luna laughed and gave him a smile that could only be described as wry.

“Fair?” she asked, and glanced over towards her sculpture, which was now pulsing slightly and looking even more ominous than it had been before. She looked back towards Harry with a sad look in her eyes. “That word doesn’t mean anything Harry, and I think you know that. Can you remember a single moment in your life when things were _fair?_ Fair implies that we all have a worth that can be measured.”

Harry studied Luna for a second and then looked at the ground.

“What can I do?”

“I’m not sure I’m the right person to ask,” she said finally. “My word holds about as much weight as Malfoy’s in the real world.”

“I’m not asking you to try convincing — I just — do you have any ideas?”

“Fight back,” she said simply. “What you’ve always done. You don’t need to ask me, you already know what to do.” Harry nodded and looked to the side. He looked around her house for a second and then looked back towards her.

“Thanks, Luna.”

“No problem,” she said happily. “Stop by whenever you like, friends are always welcome here!”

“I might take you up on that,” Harry said, and he knew he’d have to. He missed Luna.

“Okay!” she said, smiling at him so genuinely that it made Harry’s heart hurt and his insides twist, sending a jolt of pain through him, because he should have come to visit earlier. “And Harry? Your aura is very disturbed. I’m not sure what you’ve done to it, but it’s hazy on the outside and blackened on the inside, and you should really try to figure that out as soon as you can, because there’s something seriously wrong.”

“I — er…” He looked down at his arm, as though maybe he’d be able to see what Luna was talking about, but as far as he could see it was merely an arm. “Okay.”

“Be careful,” she frowned. “Your magic is all out of balance.”

“I’ll be careful,” Harry said with another steadying breath. “Thanks. It was nice to see you again, Luna.”

“Likewise!” she said, and with that, Harry apparated out of her flat with the world spinning around him.

When he was back at his flat, he thought about what Luna had told him, and he knew that he needed to visit Malfoy as soon as he could. He wondered if the Ministry would allow him to visit. He wondered if he was blacklisted again, like he’d been before, like Dumbledore had been during the war. He wondered how many times the world would have to repeat itself before people would finally see reality. Before they’d stop believing every word they read in the newspaper. 

So he apparated to the Granger-Weasley flat. Both Ron and Hermione were home, sitting at their kitchen table, and when Hermione saw him there, she stood up to take a step in front of Ron.

As though she was _shielding_ him from Harry’s wrath.

“Harry,” she said. That one word, that’s all, and Harry had no clue where he stood with Hermione. He didn’t want to bother with pleasantries.

“I need to see Malfoy,” he said, looking at Hermione and ignoring Ron in the background, certain that all he’d find was a spluttering, disapproving face looking back at him. Hermione, at least, had sense. She looked at him. Considering. Calculating. The way she studied her textbooks before an especially difficult test.

“Why?” she asked, shifting on her feet, still keeping Ron out of Harry’s direct line of sight. “What do you need to see him for?”

“He needs a trial,” Harry said simply. His mind was so far past made up that he was pretty sure even common sense couldn’t change it. Malfoy deserved a trial. It didn’t even matter what Malfoy _deserved,_ he realized, because Malfoy _had_ to have a trial. It wasn’t a question.

“How will seeing him help?” Hermione asked. She wasn’t responding to anything he said, only retaliating with more questions.

Almost as though Harry was on trial.

“He’s innocent. I can help him figure out how to let him go free.”

Hermione glanced back at Ron at those words, her body twisting to reveal his face — it was set in stone, glaring at Harry with all the fury in the world, and Harry briefly wondered how this had happened. How Ron and Malfoy appeared to have switched places in his mind. He wondered what was happening to the world, that he defended Malfoy before Ron.

That’s when Ron spoke.

“He isn’t innocent,” he snarled. “You’re jealous that you aren’t on top anymore, that you work in a tattoo shop instead of with the Aurors, and you need to undermine us to prove that you’re still better, is that it?”

Harry refused to rise to the bait. There wasn’t time for losing his cool.

“He gets a trial.”

There was no response to those words. Ron’s face didn’t change, and Hermione shifted her weight again, looking uncomfortable being stuck in the middle.

“Do you remember the last person who went to Azkaban without trial?” Harry burst out suddenly, glaring at the two of them, letting his gaze burn into each of them in turn, wanting them to feel like he could read their minds and was currently searching their souls. “Because I do. _Sirius Black, notorious mass murderer._ Remember how well that turned out? Remember how guilty he was?” 

There was still no response.

“Tell me!” Harry yelled. “Hermione, was he guilty?”

“No,” she said, sounding more meek than Harry had ever heard. “No, I agree with you Harry. I think he should get a trial, and I never said otherwise.”

Harry felt a rush of relief through him, like something was opening, like his veins were unclogging and relief was sweeping over him fiercely.

“Thank you,” he said quietly. He turned to Ron, not expecting the same reaction, but waiting nonetheless.

“Okay,” he said finally, after a long pause. There was a strange quality to his face, an expression that Harry couldn’t place even after knowing Ron for so very long. He stood up, and walked towards Harry, hand outstretched. “You’re right.”

Harry gaped at him a second before hesitantly reaching out, grabbing Ron’s hand and shaking it.

“So he’ll get a trial?” he asked frantically, needing to hear the words in order to believe them. Malfoy had to go free.

“I’ll do my best,” Ron shrugged, and he backed up to stand next to Hermione. They didn’t say anything else. It wasn’t magic. There was no sudden moment when everything went back to normal and they were all best friends again, but it was something. Something good enough for Harry.

“Okay,” Harry said. Then — “Sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Ron said, still that same expression flitting over his face, a hint of it in his voice. But behind that, he was nonchalant. Almost as though he’d already forgiven Harry. 

“I want to see Malfoy,” Harry said then, smiling slightly at the two of them. “I want to talk to him.”

“Okay.” That same bland compliance from Ron. He offered Harry a smile, like they were back to being friends, but even so, there was that same strange unplaceable emotion lurking. “You can go see Malfoy. I’ll take you right now.”

With a click, they disapparated.

When they reappeared, it was in a row of Ministry holding cells. They walked along the aisle, Ron in front and Harry behind, feeling the trepidation grow with each tap of his feet against the concrete — cold and unforgiving, even by Ministry standards.

“I’ll leave you here,” Ron said finally, when they reached a tall wooden door. “He’s through there.”

And then Ron turned and walked back the other way, refusing to make eye contact with Harry. Harry didn’t dwell on it. Instead he walked through the door, letting it shut behind him. 

There was Malfoy, sitting with his back against the wall and head in his hands, long fingers entangled with his hair, curled up like he always was in Harry’s armchair — except different, because he didn’t look relaxed here. His whole body was tense, the lines of his form more prominent against the wall that seemed to stretch on forever.

Harry walked so that he was standing directly in front of the cell and staring in at Malfoy. He felt like an Auror all over again, and he wasn’t sure what to think.

Malfoy’s sleeves were pinned at the elbow, and the Narcissus flowers were running over his arms.

After a long moment, Malfoy looked up. He saw Harry, met his eyes, and promptly froze.

“Potter.”


	31. Chapter 31

“Malfoy,” Harry said in response, feeling suddenly calm. Hearing Malfoy say his name somehow made him certain that things would be okay. Malfoy was still alive, still here, still safe from the tendrils of society that reached towards him and tried to draw out what little happiness might be left.

“What are you doing here?” Malfoy asked. He stood up and swayed slightly on the spot, his fingernails scrabbling at the wall behind him. Harry was reminded suddenly of the last trial he’d been to, because this Malfoy was eerily similar to then, not _esteemed_ like usual.

He wasn’t in control anymore.

He was locked behind bars, and there was no surge of satisfaction that Harry might have felt if it had been years ago.

“You’re innocent,” Harry said. It wasn’t a question, but he was still looking for an answer, desperate for confirmation that he hadn’t gone crazy. 

“Obviously,” Malfoy snorted, and there it was — posh, defensive. It made Harry smile. 

“Ron says he’s going to try getting you a fair trial,” Harry said quickly. He wasn’t sure how much time he had here. He wasn’t even sure if he was supposed to be here. His brain clouded momentarily, the kind that made him want to be distracted, but he slogged through it. 

“He is?” Malfoy looked surprised. Then he wilted, sitting back against the wall, not seeming to care that Harry was pressed up against the bars. He looked fragile there, face more pale — or perhaps it was the contrast against the darkness of the cell, but either way he was the picture of frailty.

“That’s what he said,” Harry shrugged. “But I need evidence that you didn’t lure them there.”

Malfoy shook his head and smiled at Harry sadly, not-quite-patronizing. 

“It doesn’t matter, Potter.”

“What do you mean?” Harry asked, pacing now. He wanted to rile Malfoy up and jolt him into action, wanted him to stop sitting on the concrete and looking like his world had ended because it hadn’t yet.

“I mean, they won’t believe anything I say.”

“They’ll believe me,” Harry said confidently, thinking back to the trial and how his word had been enough to sway them.

Malfoy’s sad smile stayed exactly where it was. There was no flicker of hope. Nothing. Glassy, cold. Harry couldn’t see the color of his eyes from this far, even if he squinted, but he could see the complete hopelessness from every feature of his face.

“They might have before, but you’re not quite the same convincing hero,” he said, a laugh escaping that didn’t seemed forced but wasn’t amused all the same.

“I —” Harry knew it was true. “I’ll find someone else.”

“Good luck,” Malfoy said, sounding like he thought Harry would need it.

“I will,” Harry insisted, “I’m not letting you go to Azkaban for something you didn’t do. They can use a pensieve for all I care —”

“None of those are foolproof. Especially not to people of my upbringing. We know how to cheat them.”

“Well then help me think!” Harry erupted. “Stop sitting there looking like this is impossible and help me think of a way to get out of this!”

“What do you think I’ve been doing, sitting here all day long? It isn’t a tea party, Potter. I’ve nothing to _do_ but think. There’s no way that they’re going to let me run free, so long as I’m a Death Eater. I should have known. I’m never going to escape from this fate.”

Harry felt frantic. More frantic than he could remember feeling in a long time — not at the Ministry, when the brains had wrapped around Ron and threatened to squeeze the life out of him — not even when Bellatrix had held a knife to Hermione’s chest. Those had been in the midst of war. It felt normal.

Now, this kind of thing wasn’t supposed to happen anymore. That was what it’d been for, wasn’t it? He’d died to save the world, to bring justice. He didn’t want Malfoy to be locked away. He didn’t want to go back to the tattoo shop and stare at the armchair where Malfoy had sat day in and day out, picturing him in the corner of a cell with flesh dripping from his bones. 

He didn’t think he could stand to live like that, not when Malfoy was behind bars that he wouldn’t be able to escape from.

“I’m not letting them take you to Azkaban,” Harry said firmly. He grabbed the bars, felt his knuckles turning white, and he didn’t care in the slightest.

“Forget about it,” Malfoy said tiredly, simply. “Potter, I don’t matter. You’ll be happier with me gone, anyways. Just pretend I’m back at the Manor if you’re that bothered.”

“For fuck’s sake, Malfoy!” Harry erupted. “You were the one who said we were friends. Does that not mean anything?”

Malfoy shrugged.

“Well, if you hadn’t noticed, I care about you. And I’m not letting them take you.” Harry barely stopped to consider his words. He didn’t stop to think about how _much_ he cared, about how he wanted to reach through the bars and grab Malfoy and apparate back to the coffee shop where they could have another spirited argument, perhaps about the ethics of Aurors. 

He wanted Malfoy to be back, sitting in his armchair and considering Harry with one eyebrow raised, smirking at him while he tried to focus on work.

“If you really want to try,” Malfoy sighed, “The only way I can think of is to figure out who attacked me.”

“Then that’s what I’ll do,” Harry said. He held onto the bars a moment longer, fingers wrapped around the metal like they were the only thing stabilizing him. Malfoy stood up once more, walking unsteadily towards where Harry was standing, separated by a thin layer of metal.

He placed his hands on the bars just outside of Harry's, encapsulating him with the span of his arms. Harry was certain it was only his imagination, but Malfoy seemed more ghost-like than ever. His arms were spindly, his skin more pale, his hands less steady even where they were clenched against cold metal.

Harry looked at him for one long second, taking in his features, taking in the way he stared back at Harry, the way their eyes stayed connected as if through some kind of bond. 

"I'm going to find whoever it was," Harry said, and he wished he was as certain as his voice. 

Malfoy murmured something unintelligible, too quiet to hear completely.

“What?” Harry asked, leaning closer and willing the bars to fade away, to set Malfoy free and prevent all of this from having to happen. 

“Whomever,” Malfoy murmured. “Not whoever. Grammar, Potter. Merlin, did you never learn how to talk?”

Harry glared at him, feeling a bubbling laugh building nonetheless at how completely insulted Malfoy sounded about it. “ Shut up, idiot. I’m trying to help you. I’m going to find them, and I'm going to set you free. They aren't going to imprison you for something you didn't do. I won't let them."

"We'll see, Potter," Malfoy said, sounding exhausted. 

"Do you have any idea who it was?" Harry asked. He felt frantic. His heart was already pounding, like he was the one trapped and Malfoy was staring in at him. It felt like his own life was the one stretched out before him. 

"No," Malfoy said. He said it sharply, but there was something behind it that made Harry hesitate.

"Are you sure?"

"I have no idea who it was," Malfoy said, more firmly this time. "I'm sorry, Potter. I can't help you here."

Harry sighed and nodded, letting his hands slip away from the bars and resisting the sudden urge that overtook him, the one that compelled him to shift his hands a few bars over and take hold of Malfoy's. 

"Okay," Harry said. He stared at the pale fingers one more time, bone instead of flesh. He took another deep breath, tried to steady the tremor in his veins. "I'll see you soon, then."

"Fine," Malfoy said. Everything about him was tired. Not just his voice — although that alone was enough, the words sounding as though it'd taken all his effort to pull them up from the bottom of his mind, hundreds of years and more hundreds of pounds — but it was more than that. The way his fingers slowly slipped down the bars, like he didn't even have enough energy to hold on, the way his eyelids fluttered and his blinks lasted a split-second longer than usual, like he would take any extra rest he could get. The pure exhaustion written over every line of his face.

Malfoy looked beaten. 

He looked like he'd given up completely. Harry wondered if that's what it felt like when he took the Mark and followed every order without question. He wondered if Malfoy had given up then or if there had been a spark inside of him that compelled him to keep going, to fight back against it when he was in the dark of his own room. He almost asked.

But he didn't.

“Goodbye, Potter,” Malfoy said. He gave Harry a tight-lipped smile, one that was the opposite of happy, but it felt kind anyway, as though he was pasting on a smile for Harry's benefit. Harry wasn't sure how to feel about that. So instead he turned on his heel.

He glanced back once towards Malfoy when he was halfway down the corridor, and he found him slumped against the cold concrete of the cell, eyes closed, not even focusing on Harry. 

And then Harry turned away again and didn't look back anymore. 

He found Ron waiting for him right outside the door, that same look on his face that scared Harry, that made him wonder if Ron had really meant the forgiveness he'd spoken.

"Anything?" he asked when Harry appeared, leaning against the wall with one leg crossed over the other.

"No," Harry said simply. "He doesn't know who it was that attacked him."

A muscle jumped in Ron's jaw and he clenched his teeth tighter together, enough that Harry could almost hear them grinding against each other. He didn't say anything for a long moment, just regarded Harry and grated his teeth together.

"Right. Well, mate, I'm not sure how much a trial is going to help him."

"I'm going to figure out who did it," Harry insisted, trying to catch Ron's eye and hold it like he had with Malfoy, to keep eye contact and send his earnest wishes right through to Ron.

Ron just looked away.

"You do that," he said quietly. "Whatever you want, Harry. I don't —“ He looked about to say something but then quickly stopped. He ran a hand through his hair, a tic that would forever remind Harry of his father. A tic that only served to remind Harry of Sirius, of the years he'd spent in Azkaban for something he hadn't done. He wondered what would happen to Malfoy if he was sentenced to Azkaban.

He wondered if Malfoy would survive like Sirius had.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he didn't think Malfoy would. He had the feeling he would surrender himself to the dementors and let whatever happiness was left be sucked out of him.

That only strengthened Harry’s resolve.

"I know you think he did it," Harry frowned at Ron. "But he didn't. I promise you, he didn't do it."

"Okay," Ron shrugged. "I trust you." His tone didn't match his words, a duality that sent shivers through Harry. _I trust you_. He clearly didn't, from every move, from the careful distance he put between them when they walked. 

They were at a strange crossroads — proclaimed friends, in actuality less than acquaintances. Harry no longer had any idea how to act. It was like he was standing with a group of strangers, like he was watching Dean give a tattoo and racking his brain for distraction topics of conversation so the stranger wouldn't feel so much pain. Ron was like a stranger, someone he _had_ to talk to. Harry longed for the easy conversation he always seemed to achieve with Malfoy.

He didn't know what to think anymore. Everything around him felt like it was slowly crumbling in, the pain only dulled by the cloud of Dreamless Sleep that still hovered mercifully around him, blanketing every blow with a million pillows, a shield charm from his emotions.

Dreamless, anger. Harry had his ways. It made the world easier. That was the simple fact of it, of his existence.

He would hide, and he would live.

That’s all it was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys are all so supportive and it's the most wonderful thing ever, THANK YOU!!! <3


	32. Chapter 32

So he apparated to Malfoy Manor. It was easy, and it took less than a second. He no longer needed sidealong apparition because he knew the precise location — he could picture everything about the Manor down to the last strutting peacock.

From the outside, it looked as though nothing had changed. It was still towering the same, still as unforgiving as ever, still as bleached, still paled from all color. Harry walked towards it, trying not to let the trepidation slow him down. He imagined he was on another Auror mission, with Ron by his side. And then he stopped imagining that, because he remembered that the Aurors wouldn't have come here in the first place, not when they had a Death Eater in their clutches that they already held with a conviction of guilt.

He opened the door. The magic was heavy as ever, still as dark, still as loud. He walked through it, not sure what he was looking for. The walls were still covered with portraits of Malfoys who tilted their chins imperiously when he walked by and looked down at him over the bridges of royal looking noses. 

Malfoy didn't look at him like that. Not anymore, at least.

"Piss off," Harry muttered at them. They didn't respond. It was silent. Dampened. His words didn't echo -- they barely reached beyond his own ears. 

He walked down the corridor and realized he had no clue what he was looking for here. 

"Hello?" he asked. He wasn't sure what he was expecting. He'd only just seen Malfoy, behind bars with his hands clutched tight, fingers as white as the rest of him and not more so, something that would have been nearly impossible.

There was a creak from above. Harry started, then he made his way up the stairs. There was a small layer of dust coating the steps, and his footprints felt like evidence that could be used against him, bright and evident against the rest of the house.

"Is someone there?" Harry said. It had probably been a trick of imagination in any case, hearing what he'd expected to hear. Perhaps a door, moved by wind. He walked anyways, receiving no answer to his question.

It wasn't until he saw a tiny shadow slinking past a doorway that he realized what the noise had been.

A house-elf. 

It was so obvious, so simple, because of _course_ the Malfoy household had house-elves. And, Harry realized with a rush of satisfaction, the house-elves might know who it had been that broke in. 

"Wait!" he called after the shadow, picking up his pace and trying to ignore the thickness that seemed to push back against him, like the air itself had died and been replaced with the remains of Dark Magic, curling through the staircase like beckoning knuckles, trying to pull Harry back.

He refused to succumb.

He found the house-elf inside one of the rooms with a door so large that Harry expected it to be near-impossible to open. The handle was ornate, a golden dragon that wound up and hissed flames towards a knocker that lay high on the top. It opened easily — oil on the hinges, a mere touch against the dragon.

It was a large room. It almost looked like a ballroom, because the floor was clear, the outside lined with more portraits and a single mirror, standing tall.

"Straighten up!" 

The voice came out of nowhere, a high-pitched bark that Harry wouldn't have thought possible until this very moment, penetrating his senses with only a couple words. He wheeled around. The house-elf hadn't spoken it.

"Tuck in your shirt!"

That's when Harry realized, with a breath of relief that did nothing to still the heavy hammer of his heart against his ribcage, that it had been the mirror.

"Sod off," he muttered under his breath, leaving the door open behind him and making his way slowly into the room. 

The house-elf was lurking in the corner of the room, small enough that it blended right into the shadows, the only thing that gave away its position being the batlike ears that stuck out from either side, giving the shadow a peculiar shape.

"Er — hello," Harry said, approaching the house-elf. It didn't move. There was a small tremor in the shadow, and Harry felt supremely foolish. "Er... what's your name?"

No response.

"I'm Harry Potter," he said finally, after the silence wore too thin. "I'm a friend of Malfoy's. Er - Draco Malfoy. Is he your master?"

Another tremor, a quiver that only shook the shadow.

"Right," Harry said, letting out a sigh. "He's in prison right now, and I'm trying to help get him free. Do you — I might need your help, if you can give it to me."

"Sir is no longer here," Harry heard, a low mutter that felt darker than the press of magic around him. The shadow broke away from the wall, shuffling towards Harry, and Harry took a step back to allow more room. "Sir is being attacked, oh yes, Sir is being attacked."

There was a wail then, and for some reason Harry had never been more thankful. He knew how to deal with this. This wasn't difficult.

"Okay," Harry said quietly, and he looked down on the house-elf. Bulging eyes like always, a bright yellow, a nose similar to Dobby's but slightly more elongated, a bulge of flesh. “Can I talk to you?"

The elf looked up at Harry, mouth quivering.

"Stranger is requesting to talk to Nazzle — oh, what would Master say?"

"Malfoy — er, Master is the one who sent me here," Harry said, ignoring that it was only half true, that Malfoy had in fact been the one to try dissuading him, telling him it wouldn't be possible. "Your master? Draco Malfoy? He's stuck in jail, and he sent me here to talk with you."

The elf looked up at Harry, eyes blown even wider, completely round. It was as though his eye sockets didn't appear at all, the entire eyeball bulging out and staring at Harry.

"Sir is sending strange man? Is strange man lying?"

Like always, he continued muttering to himself, refusing to address Harry directly. Harry didn't mind. It felt like he was making headway, if only a little bit.

"Er — Nazzle,” Harry said, still feeling out of his element, wishing vaguely that Malfoy was with him. "I need your help if we want to get your master back. I need to know who attacked him, can you tell me that?"

Nazzle stared up at him, and Harry couldn't read any emotions on his face, because the features looked far too alien. Harry shifted from foot to foot, no idea what his next move should be.

“Nazzle is not knowing," he croaked out finally, eyes wide. “Nazzle is not knowing strange man. Nazzle is not knowing!" He broke off into a long wail, low but eerie, like the scream of merpeople from underwater, distorted by the heavy veil of dark magic that still hung around them.

“Okay, Nazzle,” Harry said, the name still feeling foolish in his mouth. "I just need to know anything you can tell me. Did the person who attacked Master say anything? Were you there? Do you know what he looked like?"

Nazzle collapsed to the ground then, limbs spasming, and Harry realized that this must be a common trait for house-elves. He crouched down beside Nazzle and stared at the writhing body, not sure how he was supposed to comfort a distraught elf. He thought vaguely that at least he couldn't do worse than Hermione.

"Er — it's okay," Harry said awkwardly, reaching out to pat one of Nazzle’s legs in what was supposed to be a comforting gesture. "It's okay. I just need to know anything you can tell me."

Nazzle looked up at him finally and let out a sobbing gasp. He pulled himself together.

"He is saying that Master is killing his brother! He is saying, ‘ _You won't kill Harry Potter like you killed my brother!’_ Master isn't killing anyone, sir, Master isn't touching a hair on anyone's head. Master is —“

"Okay," Harry said quickly. "I know, your Master didn't kill anyone. What else can you tell me about this person?"

Nazzle looked up at him, a single tear leaking out from his eye, rolling down the pasty skin. Harry felt suddenly bad for the creature that lay in front of him, spasming on the floor. He wondered how it was possible that house-elves could ever want a life like this.

“Nazzle isn't seeing! Master is ordering Nazzle to stay out of the way, to keep Mrs. Malfoy safe and — oh!" Nazzle let out another huge sob and devolved into tears again. "Oh, Nazzle is failing!"

"Right," Harry said. "So you don't know anything else about who it was?"

"No," Nazzle gasped out. Harry nodded his thanks and backed away slowly. He knew he didn't have any more control over Nazzle, and also knew that it was probably best for him to just leave now. When he got out of the Manor, mind already running out of control, he apparated quickly to his flat, the words still ringing in his ear.

_You won't kill Harry Potter like you killed my brother._

He looked around him, at the strange half-spotless half-mess of his flat, still remaining strangely clean from when Malfoy had complained about it. 

Like you killed my brother.

His first instinct was to visit Hermione. She would know, and even if she didn't she'd be able to help. She could deduce it easily if she was given enough time, Harry knew she could. He could picture her already, rifling through records of war deaths and — Harry let out a sigh.

He wasn't sure if Hermione would help him or if she would agree with Ron. But, he figured, it was really worth the risk. The worst that could happen was she would turn him away. So he apparated to their house to find Ron and Hermione both home, sitting in the kitchen again. He froze. He wondered if they'd heard him come in, if the wards had alerted them.

It didn't seem like it, because they kept talking as though nothing had changed. Harry knew eavesdropping was wrong, but he wasn't sure what else to do.

"I'm worried about him," Hermione said quietly. "But I don't think Malfoy has him under any spells, Ron, it would be difficult to keep that kind of thing up from long-distance —“

"Like a love potion?" Ron interrupted. Footsteps sounded heavy, and Harry froze before realizing that Ron was pacing, walking back and forth in front of the table. "That wouldn't require any long distance spells. It's easy enough, slip it into a drink while he's focused on some tattoo thing, and boom. Game over."

Hermione was quiet for a second.

"I think that would be obvious, if it were the case."

"Do you? We both know he's always been obsessed with Malfoy, the difference would almost be minimal. Exactly enough to get Harry on his side, small enough that it's hard to tell the difference. All he needed was a nudge."

"Ron, I don't -"

Harry strolled into the kitchen, not wanting to hear them say anything else. 

They both froze, staring up at him with looks of complete guilt. Ron's mouth was hanging open, and Hermione was staring at him as though trying to deduce how much he'd heard.

"Hi," Harry said simply, perhaps more harsh than usual, but they seemed too distracted to notice.

"Harry!" Hermione said after a tense second, standing up and forcing a smile onto her face. "Nice to see you!"

Ron was still staring at him open mouthed, but Harry ignored him. All he needed right now was Hermione. Ron could keep scheming and plotting and deciding that Harry was drugged with love potion.

"I need your help," he said, looking right at Hermione. He could practically feel the anger simmering off Ron. It wasn't unexpected. Harry could feel the jealousy like a cloud, but this time it was mixed with suspicion and anger, emotions he knew all too well. He knew what Ron was feeling, could read it without even looking at him. He hated being ignored because _he'd_ always been Harry's best friend, not Hermione. He was angry about Malfoy, suspicious about Harry's motives, and overall he had no trust in anything anymore.

"What do you need?" Hermione asked carefully, sending a glance in Ron's direction. Harry resolutely refused to follow her gaze.

"I have more news about who attacked Malfoy," Harry said, and Ron turned with a grimace, muttering something to Hermione before walking out of the room, his footsteps heavy against the stairs.

"He's tired," Hermione said apologetically. "It's been a long day."

Harry sighed and sat down at the table, eyes closing momentarily.

"I know he doesn't trust me, ‘Mione. It's fine."

She took a seat too, looking at Harry closely and then glancing up towards where the stairs were, looking torn.

"You can go after him if you want," Harry said. He didn't want to tear them apart and force them to choose sides. As angry as he might be with Ron, they were still his friends, to a degree. He didn't want to come in and divide them over something that he barely understood himself.

"No, don't worry," Hermione said after a second, putting her elbows on the table and carefully considering Harry. "What did you learn?"

"I went to Malfoy Manor," he began, explaining his visit with the house-elf and ignoring Hermione's not so subtle noises of disgust at the way the house-elf had broken down. Even this many years later, she was still steadfast in her hate of house-elf imprisonment.

"So somebody attacked him out of vengeance," she concluded, humming thoughtfully and tracing a finger along her bottom lip as she thought.

"Also because they were feeling righteous," Harry added. "They wanted to protect me from him, whatever that means. It was after the article in the papers, about how he's — well, you read it."

"Hmm," Hermione said again. “Vengeance and righteousness. A strong combination."

Harry nodded and watched her. Her vision had gone unfocused and she was staring at a spot right over Harry's shoulder, deep in thought. When she looked back at Harry, there appeared to be a question hovering on her mind. Harry could tell from the twitch of her head, the way she shifted and her mouth quirked slightly. She wasn't sure whether or not she should ask.

"What is it?"

"Was the article true?" she blurted out, looking at Harry in that searching way that was scarily similar to Dumbledore, like she was reading his soul and taking him apart bit by bit. "Are you and Malfoy dating?"

"I — Mione!" Harry exclaimed, feeling heat rise into his face. "I don't — where would you get that idea? For Merlin's sake."

She didn't answer, merely considered him with a tilt of her head.

"You don't need to tell me," she said after a moment. "I was just curious."

Harry shook his head vigorously, doing his best not to think about the article, about dating Malfoy, about something that couldn't happen in a million years, about something he wouldn't want — but would he? He shook his head again, trying to clear it of other thoughts and focus on what was really important here.

"We're not, but it doesn't matter. I need to figure out who attacked him."

"Right," Hermione said briskly, down to business. Exactly as Harry had predicted, she stood up and hurried over to her bookshelf, pulling out a large index. "We're looking for somebody who died during the war, most likely, unless something happened before that. Possibly at the hand of the Malfoy family, although that's not necessarily true, because he's blamed for all war casualties now. Whoever died has a brother, someone who knows you — although again, not necessarily, because you're famous and everyone knows you, technically."

Harry watched her flip through the pages, stopping every so often with a thoughtful expression on her face before shaking her head and flipping the pages again, looking for something.

"There can't be that many possibilities," Harry murmured, wracking his brains. “A family with two brothers. One died in the war."

"And the other attacked Malfoy," Hermione said quietly. "Which means they're still in the country, most likely, seeing as they read the Prophet on a daily basis." 

She pulled a quill out of her bag and another piece of parchment from nowhere, like she'd conjured it from nothing. Harry wouldn't be surprised if she had.

She started scribbling a list of names, ever growing, and Harry tried not too look to closely. The list grew longer, in her ever-neat handwriting, only slight blots of ink to show the haste with which she was writing. She flipped another page in the book, looking down at it thoughtfully, and then she pushed the list over to Harry.

"Okay," she said, full research mode now, eyes alight despite the subject at hand. "That's a list of all the males that died during the war. We can rule out everyone that doesn't have a brother, I just need - hold on."

She jumped out of her chair and hurried over to the bookshelf to replace the book before drawing out another and muttering under her breath. Harry stared down at the list. It seemed to stretch on forever, name upon name upon name, traveling all the way to the bottom of the parchment. He felt sick. This was his fault. These names, these scrawls of ink, each of them a person. They had died because of him.

Hermione didn't seem to notice his consternation. Instead she drew up a chair and began to cross out names like it was nothing, like these weren't people who had lost their lives in a fight that was entirely because of Harry.

Finally, after a long moment, she flipped the paper over and wrote out three names.

"Three possibilities," she said quietly, pushing it over to Harry. "That's who it could be, if the house-elf remembers correctly, poor thing."

Harry stared at the names.

Two names Harry didn’t recognise, and — Harry stared at the last name, eyes frozen. The Creeveys.

He looked back up at Hermione, who was studying him carefully now, no longer looking down at the paper. 

"These are the options," Harry said blankly. Hermione nodded and her eyes flickered down to the paper again, seeming to take in the same thing that Harry had.

"Creeveys are most likely," she said quietly. "If all things are considered. Colin — well, you know they were big fans of you. Dennis would be around the right age. It all fits, if you really think about it. He seems to be the kind of person who would follow your story in the newspapers."

"Yeah," Harry said, his stomach turning over. He felt even more sick, thinking about Colin, who had chased after Harry with his camera held aloft, begging for an autograph. He realized with an even greater lurch that he'd never given Colin the autograph he always longed for. "I —“ He stood up from the table suddenly, looking around himself wildly. 

"Harry," Hermione said softly, putting a hand on his arm. "What do you need?"

"Colin," Harry gasped out. "I never —“ He tried to clear his head, but the nausea was wrapped up in a thousand other senses now, because all of this was his fault, without a question. He was the reason for this. He was even the reason that Malfoy was stuck behind bars now.

"Shh," Hermione said softly. "Harry, you remember what we talked about. This isn't your fault."

Harry nodded, because it was the only thing he could do. He wasn't agreeing with Hermione — he'd barely even heard what she'd said — but nodding was the easiest thing to do. He needed this to end. He had to go. He had to stop feeling.

"I'm going to — thanks for the help," Harry said, looking around him. "I'll… er… thank you. I'll see you around."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This plot changed so drastically and I have no clue how my brain works


	33. Chapter 33

Without another thought, he disapparated, reappearing in his house with a whirl. The world was tilting around him. He couldn't think because he'd been taken over by emotions, by horror and guilt and — he rummaged through his cupboard, searching desperately, _desperately_. He needed to sleep, to escape from everything that was running through him. He needed a respite, a safe haven with no nightmares and no emotions and nothing to distract him.

He found the bottle easily, running low, dangerously low. He had no idea how his stock had gotten so depleted, but at the moment he didn't care. The only thing he could think about was tossing back the potion and swallowing it, letting out a breath of relief as it overtook him in a haze of sleep, shutting his eyes with tendrils of magic and shutting off his emotions with a few more. 

He drifted away, into a land of pure darkness, and he thought vaguely before he drifted off that this must be what death felt like.

Harry awoke the next morning slowly. It took longer than usual for him to wake up — the period between sleep and wake growing hazy, stuck in a limbo where he moved without actually moving and where he awoke while he was still asleep.

When he finally came to, his mind was numb. The only thing he could remember was a name floating through his consciousness.

_Creevey_.

There were no emotions to accompany the name. No emotions at all, actually. Instead it was pure nothingness, a name that held nothing, just a word. His heart pounded strangely in his chest. He could feel some beats more strongly than the rest, like a breath in his throat, while the rest came as easy as blinking. He felt dizzy when he moved too fast, a strange tilting of his world that came along with another too-fast beat of his heart.

Creevey.

He knew what he had to do now. He had to find Dennis, wherever he was. He needed evidence that Dennis was the one who'd attacked Malfoy.

So that's what he did. It was easy enough to find an address — when he was ultra-focused on a problem like this, he seemed to acquire new investigative abilities. 

So he apparated to Dennis's apartment without another word, whirling into place with a numbness still hanging around him, as heavy as the magic from the Manor, taking over his every thought and feeling, directing his movements for him. He took a backseat to the force controlling his brain.

He rang the doorbell and waited patiently until it swung open to reveal none other than Dennis Creevey.

Harry took him in — pure observation, nothing more. He looked tired. Not as tired as Malfoy had looked, not bone-tired nor an exhaustion that was impossible to get rid of. He simply looked like he hadn't slept, with bags under his eyes and a yawn in his throat. His eyes widened when he saw Harry, a look of awe crossing his features, and he looked eerily like Colin when he did that. 

In hiz fuzzy state, Harry wasn't sure if the name Colin was supposed to mean something to him. He felt too hazy to care, so he didn’t dwell on the name any longer than he had to.

He stepped inside at Dennis's beckon, crossing the threshold hesitantly and taking a seat at a round table that was covered with newspapers. Harry saw his own face staring up at him, saw Malfoy’s, saw headlines that screamed both of their names with a volume that made Harry wince even though not a word had been spoken.

He shook his head. The fog didn't clear. The Dreamless Sleep still tugged at him.

"Harry!" Dennis came over hurriedly with a mug of tea clutched in his hand, and he placed it down in front of Harry with a zeal that caused the tea to lap at the sides. An ocean, the tide coming in. Harry wasn't quite sure what was happening. "Harry Potter!"

"Er — yeah," Harry said, looking around him blearily and not taking much in. "Er — I was coming to ask, did you hear about Malfoy?"

"Malfoy?" Dennis asked, and the look on his face was enough to confirm every one of Harry's suspicions. Unfortunately, that wouldn't be enough for a trial. Harry knew he had to tread carefully now if he wanted the evidence he was coming from.

"Yeah," Harry nodded. "Sorry for the sudden visit, I needed somebody to talk to but most people were busy. You were the first person I thought of. I haven't seen you in a while, and I thought we could catch up. I trust you, Dennis.”

The story sounded ridiculous even to his own clouded ears, ringing with falsities and so outlandish that Harry had a hard time convincing himself that anyone would believe it. Dennis, however, wasn't anyone. He would fall for anything that convinced him Harry Potter was even remotely interested in his life.

"I — I'm honored!" Dennis spluttered, his whole face lighting up. Harry still didn't feel a single emotion. He was empty.

"Oh, none of that," Harry smiled. "You're my friend."

He was laying it on thick now. Never in his life had he considered Dennis something even close to a friend, but if that would get him a confession, he could sure as hell pretend.

"I —you too!" Dennis said hurriedly, looking vaguely starstruck. 

"Well," Harry sighed, leaning into his hand. "It's been a hectic month. Did you know that the papers thought I was dating Draco Malfoy? I've never heard something so ridiculous in my life. But believe it or not, he's getting sentenced to Azkaban now. Apparently he lured the Aurors to his house by pretending someone attacked him, when really he attacked himself."

"Really?" Dennis asked. It was obvious, even from his voice.

"Really," Harry confirmed. 

"Well that's good isn't it?" Dennis asked eagerly, glancing at the papers that were strewn across his table. "I mean, he did some terrible things."

"I know," Harry said quietly, looking down. "I'm so sorry about your brother."

He felt strange, almost like he'd taken Felix Felicis. His emotions weren't working, instead, all that was left was a voice in the back of his head, telling him how to play Dennis, to use him to his advantage. He needed a confession. He needed evidence. He had ideas worming their way into his mind now, certain they could garner a confession from Dennis. It wouldn't be hard.

"Me too," Dennis said sadly. "I miss him. He was too young."

"Most people were," Harry said. "I can't believe what happened."

Dennis nodded, looking down at the table. The newspapers scowled up at them.

"Did you know," Harry whispered, leaning in like he was about to tell Dennis a huge secret. "There's a rumor going around that it wasn't Malfoy who attacked himself at all. They're saying that maybe somebody else framed him."

"Really?" Dennis asked, eyes wide. "That's crazy."

"I wish I knew who'd done it," Harry said wistfully, looking off into the distance. "I would owe them so much. He deserves to be put in jail, you know. After everything he did. I know I testified for him, but I've realized what he did and I regret it.”

"Yeah," Dennis said, eyes growing wider by the second. "He should be in jail."

"I just wish I knew who it was that framed him,” Harry said, frowning down at the table. "They would be my new favorite person. They would be my own personal hero."

"Really?" Dennis asked, and Harry was careful not to break his mask. He could tell he was close — could tell Dennis was almost about to give it away.

"Really," Harry said, emotions still clouded off. 

"I'm going to tell you a secret," Dennis said quietly, leaning over to Harry. "It was me."

Harry grinned at him. He continued to lay it on thick. For the next half hour, he congratulated Dennis and slathered praise everywhere. It was easy when he was still surrounded by a numbness. He had it now, had all the evidence he needed. He would be able to get Malfoy free. He would be able to prevent him from being locked away in Azkaban. 

He apparated back to his flat with a pop, and that's when his emotions came flooding back all at once. He broke down. He wasn't sure what was happening. All he could think about were the things Dennis had said about Malfoy, the fact that really, Dennis wasn't a _bad_ person.

Sirius’s words rang in his head once more, haunting him. He should know this by now, that the world wasn't split into good people and Death Eaters. 

That that's how people saw it, because it was the easiest way to go. Blame the Death Eaters, move on with your life. It made things seem so clear when you did it that way. It made things easy, split clean, a divide that was simple to maneuver.

Harry flinched. He thought about Malfoy, about the few times he'd laughed, about how he took Harry to lunch when he wasn't eating enough. He thought about Malfoy now, stuck behind bars. He wondered what would happen when he turned Dennis in — Dennis, who'd suffered the loss of his brother. He thought about Colin, about Ron, about how fucked up the world had become, and he wondered when all this had happened.

He wondered when people had stopped being black and white. He wondered when everyone had turned grey, shades of grey that lined up so perfectly. He wondered when people had become a simple storm of emotions.

He wondered and he sat and he thought. He didn't know what to do.

All Harry knew was that he had to get Malfoy out of jail, because you couldn't rank grey. That's all it was. Malfoy didn't deserve it more than anybody else. Malfoy wasn't evil. Harry knew that so completely. Malfoy was, despite it all, good.

The trial crept steadily closer. Day by day, hour after hour, the trial crept closer. He told Hermione about Dennis. She didn't tell Ron.

The trial crept closer. Harry lived in a haze promoted by Dreamless Sleep.

The trial crept closer. Harry tried to think.

The day of the trial dawned early, and Harry was nervous, walking around with the memory in hand. He wasn't sure if it would be enough, but a record of what Dennis had said should be sufficient to convict, if he played his cards right.

It was eerie, when he sat in the courtroom staring around him. It reminded him of the last trial he'd been in with Malfoy, when Malfoy had only just gotten out of school, when the remnants of the war took over every part of their lives.

It almost felt the same now. Malfoy looked exactly as haunted as he had then, limp and pale, dark circles that looked like stormclouds dripping under his eyes. He didn't meet Harry's gaze. He looked down at the table, Narcissa sat on the other side of the room at her own chair. There was silence while people filtered in, only echoing footsteps and eerily quiet whispers floating around him in a mist.

Harry waited. He watched. When they called upon him, he showed the memory of himself with Dennis. Everything was passing, but all Harry could take in was the facts, not the emotions that should have gone alongside them.

The jury watched his memory, although it didn't really seem like they were _watching_. Instead, Harry got the distinct impression that they were merely looking, taking in the memory with their eyes but not comprehending it with their brains.

Harry wanted to shake them. He wanted to jump up and scream, to show them all that this memory pardoned Malfoy, that he should be let free now because he hadn't been the one to cause any of this.

Until Malfoy started to talk. 

Despite his appearance, his voice was smooth and confident as ever, not a single waver, not a tremor.

"I'm pleading guilty," he said, and he refused to meet Harry's eyes. "I was the one who lured the Aurors to the manor. I wanted to attack them, so I used my mother's madness as a buffer. I could blame it on her, when the Aurors died. I wouldn't be around by then — I was planning on fleeing. It would have been perfect, merely her and a bunch of dead Aurors."

Harry didn't understand what he was saying. The words flowed over him. His mind happily ignored the sound.

"Mr. Potter's memory can't be true, no matter how tempting I find it to pretend it is. There are numerous explanations — one is that it was falsified. Mr. Potter has been prone to several outbursts of his own madness since the war, and his memory can hardly be trusted. Another explanation is that poor Dennis Creevey was so distraught over his brother's death and so starstruck by having the famous Harry Potter in his house that he admitted to a crime he didn't commit, just to gain the favor of the famous war Hero who we all know and love. It makes sense, really. Is there any proof? No. There's no actual proof. The memory means nothing.”

Harry was staring at Malfoy. He didn't know what to say, had no clue what to think. Why was Malfoy saying these things?

"So I don't believe my mother should be convicted," Malfoy finished, looking over at Narcissa, who was bowed over in her chair and shaking. "She has gone insane from the war. I used her to my advantage. I'm turning myself in on the grounds that she be taken to St. Mungo's."

And that — that moment was when Harry realized exactly what was happening. It was so simple, so completely _obvious_ , that it was a miracle he hadn't foreseen it.

If Malfoy went along with the evidence, his Mother would be put in Azkaban for attacking the Aurors, no matter what happened to Malfoy. So Malfoy was protecting her by pleading guilty. He was letting her free on a charge of madness. He was turning himself in because he wanted to keep her safe. 

Harry stared at him. He didn't know what to say, what to think.

Malfoy met his eyes then, grey and firm, and he gave Harry a sad smile, lips pressed together. He didn't look away for a long second, as though he was trying to convey a message without once opening his mouth.

_Sorry_ , his look said, focused intensely on Harry. _I'm sorry._

Harry didn't know what to do. He couldn't respond. Instead he stared back at Malfoy, feeling a prickling behind his eyes, watching as Malfoy was handcuffed with steel that matched the bars from his cell. He didn't look away from the eyes that were boring into him. He didn't say a word. Instead he stared and tried to convey his own message with just his gaze. He wondered if Malfoy would understand. He wasn't sure.

So he just kept staring at Malfoy, completely focused. He watched as they dragged Malfoy away, watched as Malfoy refused to fight. He watched as they handcuffed Narcissa as well and ordered that she be taken immediately to St. Mungo’s.

He watched, he stood and he did nothing.

_I'm sorry too_ , he tried to say with his eyes. _I'm sorry too._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just had this brilliant idea where if you crush tortilla chips and put them in a cup, you can drink them! It's genius! I am now drinking chips while I edit.


	34. Chapter 34

Harry had no idea what to do. He felt lost. He sat in his flat and stared at the wall, taking it in and wondering how everything happened so fast. One second he’d been ecstatic — one second he’d thought Malfoy would be going free.

His head had been filled with pictures, the tattoo shop and the coffee place across the street, arguing with Malfoy and laughing and maybe — he wasn’t sure. It didn’t matter, because all those pictures had been shattered so quickly, a nail against a sheet of ice, destroying any and everything that _might_ have been possible.

Might-have-beens were irrelevant now, just something else to torture himself with.

He lasted about ten minutes, staring at the wall, before he stood up to rummage in his cupboard. He downed the last of the Dreamless in one gulp, letting out a deep breath as he did so, imagining that all his emotions left him along with his breath. He let himself slip, let darkness overtake him and wrap around the edges of his vision, a beauty that filled up his lungs and distorted all of his senses. He breathed it in. He breathed it out. He disappeared from the physical.

When he finally came to, he was stuck in his bed, unable to move. It was strange — in his mind’s eye, he could see himself moving. He stood up, grabbed his cloak, walked to the door, reached out — only to find himself lying in his bed with his eyes still closed and his body still. He slipped in and out of consciousness, the darkness of sleep blending with the swimming colors that streamed through the window and through his eyelids. 

He lay there, surrounded by a cloud that lifted him up and warmed his soul. He let it fill him. Let it take him. Let it become him.

His emotions were gone, but that was _okay,_ he realized. That was okay because there was fog in their place, a fog that felt purple, that made him feel like emotions didn’t matter. Why had they mattered? He wondered it vaguely, as though from a different body. 

He felt good when he stood up, when he walked out of his flat without knowing where he was going. Each step left him dizzy until his body was filled with a constant hum, a buzz that ran from where it pulsed in his head all the way down to his feet. He felt like he was floating over the world as he walked. He felt whole.

_Malfoy._ The word echoed vaguely in the back of his mind, and he remembered passively, like he was watching it on a screen. It wasn’t something that actually mattered, he laughed to himself. No, it was merely something that was there, waiting for him. But he still felt an urge in the back of his head to _do_ something. He had to do something, even if his emotions didn’t reflect the urgency in a way he could feel.

A light voice echoed through him. _Fight back. What you’ve always done. You don’t need to ask me, you already know what to do._

Harry didn’t think too long on it. Instead, he turned on his heel, something he’d grown quite accustomed to doing under conditions where his mind was dulled. He reappeared with a dizzying spiral, and he wasn’t sure if it was the apparition or the Dreamless that was still sending him into spirals.

He knocked on the door, closing his eyes momentarily, but that only made him spin more. His heart was doing that same erratic pulsing where it chose beats to accentuate, where it pulsed in odd places and he could feel it strangely — a beat in his hand, low in his stomach, high in his chest, a pulse in his brain, two against his ribs.

“Luna?” he called through the door, and it swung open before him. Luna didn’t look surprised. In fact, she was holding two cups of tea in her hands. She held one out to Harry with a delighted smile, and beckoned him inwards with a precarious motion that sent a tiny drop of tea sloshing onto her arm.

“Harry, so good to see you again!” Harry followed her, unfeeling, back to the living room. They sat down on the couch, an odd couch that was more like a giant circular pillow than a couch. He sat down hesitantly, balancing the drink precariously on his knee. 

“Good to see you too,” he said, and he sounded dull to his own ears. Luna frowned at him, her gaze sweeping over him and taking him in. He tried to smile.

“What have you done?” she asked, sounding distraught. 

“What do you mean?” Harry asked, looking down at himself as though he expected the answer to be written across his skin. “I haven’t done anything.”

“Your aura is a mess,” Luna said, sounding incredibly sad. She looked at him again, taking in the state of him. “It’s shrinking. It’s so close to your skin that I can barely see it anymore. Are you taking something to repress it?”

Harry shrugged.

_Dreamless,_ his mind supplied. It was almost ironic that it had sept into his normal life, not just his sleep — had stolen the dreams from his waking as well. He looked away from Luna and didn’t say anything. She frowned at him.

“Hold on,” she said, and she stood up, skipping out of the kitchen in a strange opposition to the expression on her face. When she returned, there was a tiny vial in her hand that she poured into the tea with a satisfying clink. “There. Should brighten you up a little.”

Harry took a sip, and the cloud dissipated slightly. He wasn’t sure how to feel about that. Vaguely, he knew he should be happy, but instead he almost wanted to sink back into it.

“Thanks,” he muttered, and now he could feel, however little, and a sadness hit him so intense that he wanted to curl into a ball. He could feel his throat closing in on himself. “Malfoy,” he whispered, looking up at Luna with a desperation that filled his whole mind.

Luna looked at him, and she looked equally sad.

“Nobody else will listen to you about him, will they?” she said quietly. “They think he deserves it.”

“Still,” Harry agreed quietly. “They can’t seem to let go.”

“You have.” Luna said it like it was the most simple thing in the world, and Harry realized that it really was. It was simple — so ridiculously simple. He wondered why he hadn’t thought of it before.

“Yeah,” Harry said. “He — he put himself in Azkaban to save his mother.” He shook his head at the table, lines running through the wood like battle scars, and Harry could only imagine the millions of experiments that had gone on in this very place. He looked up at Luna, and his guilt only increased. “I’m sorry, I only seem to come to you when I need help. I’m using you, aren’t I?”

Luna shrugged and gave him a tiny smile. “I don’t mind talking with you when you need to,” she said evenly.

“I’m going to visit more often, if that’s okay,” Harry said suddenly making up his mind. “Not only when I have nobody else to turn to.”

“I’d like that,” Luna smiled. “But it’s okay. I’m sorry about Draco too.”

“It always happens like this, doesn’t it?” Harry asked bitterly. “I used to hate his mother — I barely even saw her as human, you know? And then she sacrificed everything for her son, and I realized she was only another byproduct of the war. Somehow I didn’t realize it was the same with Malfoy, but it is. All of it is.”

Luna smiled at him, and she tilted her head to the side, as though she was satisfied with what he’d said. 

“And now he’s in Azkaban,” Harry said, his voice cracking on the last word. “Luna, I…” 

“We’ll get people to back us up,” she said solemnly, a hint of her usual cheer lurking right behind the words.

“There’s nobody,” Harry said. “I’ve been isolated again, exactly like it happened before. You were right. I’m not as much of a threat on my own, am I? It’s easy to get through one person when you’ve alienated them.”

“You aren’t alienated yet,” Luna said firmly. “There are a lot of people who will back you up. All you have to do is tell your own version of the story and let them decide for themselves.”

“How?” Harry asked desperately, and Luna smiled.

“The papers,” she said.

“I can’t — the Prophet would never do an honest interview unless they could find a way to twist it.”

“No, not the Prophet,” Luna said, eyes wide. “The Quibbler.”

* * *

Harry wasn’t quite sure how he’d managed to make it happen. All he knew was that he’d gotten visiting hours at Azkaban, and now he was standing in an antechamber to the prison, a cloak around him that had a warding charm in it to battle the dementor’s sting. He bathed in the warmth the cloak provided him, ignoring how reverent the guard seemed as he led Harry towards what was most likely Malfoy’s cell.

“This way, Mr. Potter, right this way.” Harry hurried after him, ignoring the gaze that lingered on his scar. Most of the cells were empty, darkened, as though the prisoners had simply vanished into nothingness. The doors looked like they hadn’t been opened in years, with rust clinging to the hinges and winding down the bars. Like they never needed to be opened. Harry shivered.

“Are you cold Mr. Potter? I have —”

“I’m fine,” Harry muttered, resisting the instinct to add _shut up._

“Right you are, follow me Mr. Potter. We’re almost there.”

Azkaban was a maze, more complicated than that of the Triwizard Tournament, more complicated than any maze Harry had ever been in, because there seemed to be no dead ends. Instead there were a million corridors leading to a million more cells, deeper and deeper into the prison until Harry was certain he’d never be able to find his way out. Not without assistance, at least.

Finally, the man came to a halt. He opened another door and ushered Harry inside with an awkward half-bow, inclining his torso and head as if in deference.

“There he is.”

“Thank you,” Harry said, and talking felt wrong here, like whispers should be the only thing acceptable, because normal words echoed off the stone and ricocheted back towards him.

“It’s an honor Mr. Potter, a true hon—” The door clanged shut, cutting off the desperate groveling. Harry let out a sigh of relief.

Harry stared at the cell in front of him. The light was low, and he wrapped his cloak tighter around himself, a ward against it all.

“Potter?”

The voice was hoarse, nothing like Malfoy, and for a second Harry was certain he’d gotten the wrong place. He almost turned back to the door.

“What are you doing here?”

Harry looked closer, willing his eyes to adjust to the complete black that surrounded him, only a sliver of light that came around the edges of the door behind him from a sconce on the wall. The remnants of one flickering flame, that’s all there was.

Malfoy stepped into the light, and Harry couldn’t stop himself from recoiling.

“You look terrible,” he blurted out, and Malfoy laughed, low in his throat and hoarse in the air.

“Lovely to see you too,” he said, snide and sarcastic. “You came here to insult me? Not that I blame you, of course, but —”

“Shut _up,”_ Harry muttered. “Please.” 

There was silence. Harry was used to quiet, used to people being starstruck in his presence and not knowing what to say. He was used to sitting in his flat with only the woosh of cars and creaking from pipes. But this, this wasn’t quiet. This was silence, a complete absence of noise that made Harry want to scream.

“You turned yourself in,” Harry said finally. “I gave you a way out.”

“My mother,” Malfoy said simply, confirming what Harry had already suspected to be true. “You know they would have convicted her if I went free. There’s no way they would let both of us go, the two remaining Death Eaters.”

“I know,” Harry said. “But you didn’t have to —”

“She’s my mother.”

Harry looked at him. He wasn’t sure what to say, didn’t know how to ask _since when have you cared about that_ without sounding horrible. Malfoy seemed to see it in his glare though, because his silhouette stiffened, and he let out an annoyed sound.

“You wouldn’t understand. You never knew your mother.”

Harry didn’t speak. He wanted to scream. He didn’t make a sound. He wanted to shout, to strangle Malfoy, to —

“Sorry.”

Harry glared, even though he knew Malfoy couldn’t see his facial expressions in the low light. He tried not to think about the gravestones in Godric’s Hollow, and he did his best to forget standing there next to Hermione, staring down at the worn rock and wishing beyond anything they were alive. He tried not to think about the Mirror of Erised, or the —

“I would have done the same for you.”

The statement came calmly, like he was merely vocalizing the obvious, and Harry’s head jerked up. In ordinary conditions, he would have tried to deduce what Malfoy was saying by the lines of his face, perhaps by his eyes, but all he had was a shadow.

“Why?”

“I’m not heartless, Potter, even if I’m not a hero like you.” The way he said it was scathing, but it was a compliment veiled in an insult, and Harry understood that it was the only way Malfoy could compliment him. He nodded slowly. He wasn’t sure if Malfoy could see. “Why are you here?” Malfoy asked again.

“I’m trying to get you out,” Harry said.

“You want to break me out.” It wasn’t only incredulous, it was condescending, like Harry was ridiculous for even thinking about it.

“No, not break you out, I’m trying to get them to give you another trial. Look more closely at the memories, whatever I can do. You’ll die here, if I don’t.”

“Probably.”

“How can you be so calm about that?” Harry burst out. “Don’t you want to escape? Don’t you care at all for your own life, or is this it?”

“Potter, I thought I was going to die by the time sixth year rolled around. I knew I’d be dead by seventh. It isn’t some novelty. Now I’m most likely going to die here — it’s my fault, of course, because that’s what you get for being a Death Eater. I’m not sure why you’re still bothering with me.”

“Do you think I just put up with you?” Harry asked, and he couldn’t get angry because of the cloud still floating around him, because of the way Azkaban dampened everything and the cloak around him trapped happy thoughts within the seams. “I could have thrown you out of Skin Deep, no problem. And you know what? I didn’t. I let you come back, because — for fuck’s sake, Malfoy, can you please stop arguing about this?”

Malfoy shrugged, a fluid shifting of the outline that made him up.

Harry shook his head — he ripped off the cloak and stepped closer to the bars, 

“Don’t,” Malfoy warned, as though he knew what Harry was planning to do. “They’ll know you gave it to me, and they’ll only punish me because of it. It’s going to help anybody.”

Harry threw his arms up in exasperation and wrapped the cloak back around himself, lopsided. He sat down on the floor, and felt more than saw when Malfoy’s silhouette did the same.

“Fine,” Harry said. “Well. Because you probably haven’t been seeing any of the news lately, the Chudley Cannons are still in the running.”

“No!” Malfoy said, sounding dismayed, more emotion than Harry had heard from then the entire time. “Who did they win against?”

Harry laughed and settled in, leaning against the wall.

* * *

The article went out a week later. ‘Endorsed by Harry Potter!’ was emblazoned on the front of every newspaper, block letters that spanned three whole lines, something that was so prominent it was impossible to miss.

Harry had been skeptical at first. It wasn’t unwarranted, of course, because although he’d published Quibbler articles in the past, it didn’t have the same reach as the Daily Prophet. Harry suspected that it barely had any reach at all — that is, until Luna showed him her lists upon lists of daily subscriptions.

“It’s all thanks to you!” she said brightly to Harry when he gaped at the parchment she was handing him. “You remember at Hogwarts, when we published that article? People follow it just to see if you’ll ever do something similar. Most of them don’t care about the actual content, you know.”

“I’m sure they do,” Harry said in a way that was meant to be placating, but Luna gave him one of those hawk-eyed looks that said she could see right through him.

“Don’t worry Harry, you don’t have to pretend,” she said with an airy smile that somehow gave Harry chills. “I know there isn’t a wide audience for the kind of thing we write about in the Quibbler. It’s okay.”

“Er — yeah,” Harry said. “Right then.”

Now, as Harry sat in his flat poring over the article and drinking a cup of coffee, there was a tapping at his window. He was bolt upright immediately, wand clutched in his hand, looking around him with his arm outstretched before he realized it was merely an owl.

He let it in warily, and clutched on the foot was a letter.

_Harry Potter,_ it read. _I saw your article in the Quibbler. I want to help bring justice to Draco Malfoy, even after what he did._

Harry stared down at it and then looked back to the article, rife with quotes from Dennis Creevey and a host of other details about what life was like for Death Eaters — even reformed ones — after the war. It was well written, and based off the owl, people found appeal in it. He sat back and read it in satisfaction, and then got out a quill and began to write a response to the letter.

Ron was there by nightfall, anger blazing hot in his eyes. Harry felt satisfaction spreading through him in the way that chocolate spread warmth through him after the dementors. He wondered if that’s what he looked like when he got angry, with fury seeming to sprout from every pore.

“Is something wrong?” Harry asked, and he knew he was overdoing it, because he knew exactly why Ron was here.

“What are you doing?” Ron hissed at him, jerking his neck to glare at Harry. It was an expression that might’ve made Harry quake back when he was still in Hogwarts, but now it didn’t make him scared at all. He was used to anger. This was nothing. He _wanted_ Ron to be angry, after the things Ron had said about Malfoy, after the things Ron had said about _him._

“What do you mean?” Harry asked, and it was no longer innocent, only angry. He was matching Ron’s glare look by look, refusing to give an inch.

“You know what I mean,” Ron snarled. “I saw the article you wrote in the Quibbler, stop pretending. ‘ _Draco Malfoy deserves the justice that the corrupted Ministry refuses to give?’”_

Harry held Ron’s gaze. He refused to look away, to show even the slightest bit of weakness. 

“Do you disagree with that?” Harry asked simply. “Did you or didn’t you throw him in Azkaban because he was a Death Eater? You saw the memory I provided, you _know_ Malfoy didn’t lure the Ministry there to attack them. If he was going to do that, he wouldn’t have done it in a way that made things so easy for him to get caught, you and I both know that.”

Ron’s glare didn’t ease. There was no dawning of understanding, no reconciliation, no proclamations about how they’d been friends for such a long time. Harry didn’t want any of that now. He wanted them to let Malfoy out of Azkaban where he’d been unrighteously thrown.

“What did he do to you?” Ron asked, looking disgusted. His gaze traveled up and down Harry, as though his appearance held all the answers. “Why are you suddenly on his side? It’s _Malfoy,_ Harry.”

“Why are you suddenly on the Ministry’s side?” Harry shot back, shaking his head. “You know how corrupt they are, you saw it during the war and now you refuse to believe it. Why is that, because you have your precious Auror position and you’re finally getting recognition? Is it because you aren’t being ignored anymore, is that the reason? You’re so desperate for attention —”

“Is that what this is about?” Ron snarled. “Still bitter about being thrown out of the Aurors, about being less than your idiot friend.” He shook his head, looking like he wanted to spit at Harry’s feet. “You can’t take my job, so you do this instead. Now I see. This was never about Malfoy.”

“I don’t give a _damn_ about the Aurors, Ron,” Harry sneered. “I didn’t fight for my life to have a world where people are thrown away because of their past. You can’t let go of old grudges, can you? You can’t accept that maybe, possibly, Malfoy has changed. Ron, if I can accept it, why can’t you? I was always the one who hated him so much. I don’t understand why you’re so confident that he should be in Azkaban.”

Suddenly the door to Harry’s flat banged open and Robards stood in the doorway, cloak flapping ominously around him. Harry held his head high and met Robards’s gaze.

“Yes?” he asked primly, ignoring Ron’s lack of response. “Can I help you?”

“In one day,” Robards began, walking to stand next to Ron, “The Auror office has received a total of two thousand owls and fifty-four visitors, all demanding justice for Draco Malfoy. Explain yourself.”

Harry opened his mouth, but Robards cut him off a second later.

“Actually, no explanation. What do you want, Potter.”

“I want you to let Malfoy go,” Harry said firmly, crossing his arms and hoping it looked powerful instead of childish. “He isn’t guilty.”

Robards looked at him incredulously, and then he glanced over to Ron, who was still glaring at Harry with an intensity that didn’t seem likely to wane anytime soon.

“You want us to release a Death Eater,” Robards said, a statement that was probably supposed to emphasize how ridiculous the request was, but it only served to anger Harry further. 

“He’s not a _Death Eater,”_ Harry burst out. “He’s a person. What’s so difficult to understand about that?”

Robards was still staring him in that way that was supposed to let him know he’d missed the point completely, but Harry refused to acquiesce to his incredulity. He straightened up and glared back at Robards. 

“Mr. Potter,” Robards said, formal as always. “You do understand that it isn’t a question of Mr. Malfoy’s innocence. There’s a certain political aspect to imprisoning him. The last remaining Death Eater — it boosts morale, it —”

“Makes the Auror office look good,” Harry spat out, shaking his head. “Makes the Ministry look good, doesn’t it? That’s all that matters. Hire Harry Potter, makes you look good. Throw an innocent man in jail, makes you look good.”

Ron opened his mouth to speak.

“Malfoy isn’t an innocent man,” he began, but Harry didn’t want to hear anymore, especially not from Ron.

“Maybe I’m not completely sane,” Harry burst out, “But you can’t take away the fact that I’m still the hero of the Wizarding World. People will always look up to me. I have enough power that I can do a lot of damage to the Ministry.” He said it simply — wouldn’t let his words be eroded by anger, because he wanted them to hear everything he said, loud and clear. “Let Malfoy go free or it’ll be extremely bad for you.”

Robards stared at him for a long moment. 

“Fine,” he said at last. “Malfoy gets out of Azkaban — on a technicality, that’s the official word. We aren’t clearing his name.”

“Then don’t,” Harry said back, trying to put as much disdain into those two words as he possibly could. “Let him go free, that’s all I ask.”

“You’re walking on thin ice,” Robards warned him, eyes narrowed. “Be careful, Potter. At some point you’re going to fall.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...I am now drinking chocolate chips from a cup. I have no regrets.


	35. Chapter 35

Malfoy was released from Azkaban the next day. It was dotted over the pages of the Prophet, here and there between the lines — evidently the Ministry had done their best to quell the news, because the front page was clear.

Malfoy came to visit Harry at his flat the next morning, standing there and looking like he’d never been to Azkaban at all, with a traveling cloak drawn up tight around him and curling down at his chin. 

“Potter,” he said when Harry opened the door, standing a step down from the entrance. 

Harry was a Gryffindor — he acted on impulses, a part of his nature he couldn’t ignore. And right now, his instinct made him walk down the two steps and wrap his arms around Malfoy.

Malfoy tensed underneath him, all bones instead of flesh, sharp angles, arms rigid against his sides. It was a long second before he relaxed, bringing his arms up tentatively around Harry in a way that made Harry wonder distantly if anybody had ever hugged Malfoy anymore. He acted like it was foreign, as though he’d never experienced this amount of contact.

When Harry finally released him, he turned around quickly to hide the heat in his face and stepped back into his flat, beckoning for Malfoy to join him. Malfoy followed, and when Harry looked back, he saw that there was a pink tinge to Malfoy’s countenance as well, easily visible against the pale of his skin.

Harry collapsed onto his couch and Malfoy sat primly beside him, back straight and posture perfect.

“They let you out,” Harry said with a grin, glancing over at Malfoy. “I wasn’t sure if it would work, but apparently I can still use my name to get out of things. Robards and Ron both want to kill me, I’m pretty sure.”

“You didn’t have to do that,” Malfoy frowned over at him. “Ron’s your friend.”

“ _You’re_ my friend,” Harry shrugged. “Ron is — Ron.” He didn’t bother to explain more, because he wasn’t sure any amount of words would be sufficient to explain his current relationship to Ron. He barely understood it himself.

“You should talk to him.”

“Probably.”

Silence fell for a second, but it wasn’t a bad silence. It wasn’t waiting-in-Robards’-office silence. It wasn’t McGonagall-staring-you-down silence. It wasn’t sitting-next-to-a-stranger silence. Instead it felt comfortable, easy, like it wouldn’t make a difference if they spoke or not. Harry couldn’t remember being at ease like this with anyone in a long time. He’d always felt the need to fill whatever quiet lingered around him, but with Malfoy, he could let it sit and feel no need to change a thing.

“I have to go see Mother,” Malfoy said finally. The tension had drained slightly from his shoulders even though his posture was still impeccable, and he was toying with the edge of his robe. “They told me she was in St. Mungo’s.”

“I can — if you want someone to go with you, I mean, I can go,” Harry offered. Maybe it should have felt more strange than it did, but after Malfoy had come to visit his old house, it felt nothing if not normal.

Malfoy shrugged as though he didn’t care, but he looked grateful nonetheless.

“Sure.” He paused and then drew his legs up to his chest in that way he always had at Skin Deep, turning to look at Harry. “She was always nice to me. Father — he wasn’t _mean_ by any stretch of the imagination, but he wanted me to be the perfect heir. So he treated me like that — like he was my instructor and nothing else. Mother was different. She would show me strange charms when he was out, and we would bake cookies and play with the peacocks and —” he broke off with a sigh.

Harry tried to imagine a young Draco Malfoy playing with the magnificent white birds and baking cookies. Laughing. It was hard to picture.

“And now she can’t go anywhere without seeing the war in front of her,” Malfoy said, his voice dropping to a whisper, hoarse with something like the precursor to tears. “It’s bad enough to have memories of the war, but to have that be the only thing you can see?” He stared down at his feet and tightened his arms around his legs, leaning back into the couch. “And it’s because of me.”

“I’m sorry,” Harry said, and he meant it.

“For who?”

“Both of you,” Harry replied. “She saved my life. You saved my life. You’re my friend, she’s your mother. I owe a lot to both of you.” Malfoy looked at him with an inscrutable expression dancing over his face, and Harry didn’t bother to try to understand it. 

“Sometimes I wonder if she would be better off dead,” Malfoy told him quietly. “It would probably be a better life than what she has now, if you think about it. Nothingness as opposed to war.”

Harry looked at him, not sure what to say, because inside he thought Malfoy was probably right.

“Am I wrong to have left her alive for this long?” Malfoy asked desperately, still staring down. As though he wasn’t asking Harry specifically, but instead asking the universe. Harry struggled to bite bast the fog that was still obscuring parts of his mind, the Dreamless that still basked all his senses in a mist. “There probably isn’t a way to cure her. Why would I leave her to struggle through this torture?”

“I don’t know,” Harry said, feeling helpless and wishing there was something more he could do. He wanted to comfort Malfoy, but he wasn’t sure how. 

“Let’s go,” Malfoy said suddenly, standing up and drawing his cloak tighter around him. 

“Go —?”

“St. Mungo’s. I want to go now.”

“Yeah, okay,” Harry said, thrown off but glad for a distraction nonetheless. “Let’s go.”

Malfoy held out his arm — Harry recognized it immediately as an offer for sidealong apparition, and there was a twinge inside of his gut. They could easily have apparated separately. Both of them knew exactly where St. Mungo’s was, and there was no need for them to go together, but Malfoy was offering anyway.

Harry didn’t mention it. Instead, he grabbed onto Malfoy’s arm, glad to have the warmth of another human beneath his palm, keeping him from floating off into the cloud that still hung heavy around him, a purple fog that only he could see, the mist of a heavy day that couldn’t even be broken by lights.

They appeared in St. Mungo’s with a crack, and Harry did his best not to breathe too deeply — the sting of antiseptic potions was all around him, harsh against the lining of his throat. Malfoy didn’t seemed bothered by the smell, no — instead, he was as composed as ever, standing up straight like absolutely nothing had changed. 

“We’re here to see Narcissa Malfoy,” Harry told the lady at the front desk. She looked at the two of them, eyes wide, flickering frantically between the hair on Harry’s forehead that covered up his ever-famous scar and the sleeve of Malfoy’s robe that concealed what was now a blooming Narcissus wreath. 

“Of course,” she said, her words coming out jumbled and sped up, the way people tended to talk when they were meeting Harry for the first time. “She’s — er, you can find her…” She ruffled through a binder that was sitting in front of her, glancing between the pages and the two of them frantically. “Sorry, what was the name?”

“Spell damage,” Malfoy sighed, looking at the sign beside her desk. “I know where she is. Come on.” He grabbed Harry’s arm exasperatedly and tugged him away from the desk, seemingly oblivious to the turmoil going on inside Harry, the thought that if Malfoy’s hand slipped ever so slightly lower they could intertwine their fingers.

Malfoy let go of him when they made their way past the desk, and if anything, his posture looked even straighter than usual. His jaw was clenched, lips pressed so tightly together that they became two thin lines, and even his hair looked severe, a sharp color against his cloak. Harry thought it was probably best not to comment on that. He had the feeling Malfoy wanted silence now, so Harry trailed behind him without saying a word.

They got to the lift in a matter of seconds, and Malfoy jabbed the button with a ferocity so great that Harry was surprised the lift didn't malfunction. The ride up was tense, and Harry took a breath in, wanting to say something to Malfoy but not knowing what.

He felt incredibly useless now, like he should be able to help in the same way Malfoy always did when he was exploding with anger, but he was lost for words.

Malfoy was right. He didn't understand. He'd never had a mother.

He thought about what it would be like if it was Ron lying in that bed instead of Narcissa, and it sent a pang through him before he remembered that he and Ron were still at odds. Not-quite-friends. 

"Malfoy —“ Harry began, not certain where the sentence would end up but determined to at least try.

"No," Malfoy said, effectively finishing the sentence for him. "Please don't talk right now."

Harry nodded and closed his mouth decisively, pressing his lips together like Malfoy's to insure that he wouldn't say anything unwelcome on accident. Malfoy was striding down the hallway again, and Harry had to hurry to keep up, only now realizing how tall Malfoy had grown since his time at school. Long legs, his torso stretching and no longer the same awkward frame. He'd filled out slightly, with lines where there used to be sharp angles. Harry did his best not to stare.

"Excuse me," Malfoy said to a passing nurse, excellent manners even when he was upset. "Could you please point me towards Narcissa Malfoy?"

The nurse gaped at him for a second and then looked over to Harry when he caught up, her jaw dropping further.

"Quickly, please," Harry said, only barely managing to keep the exasperation out of his voice. He'd never understand the fascination with fame. 

"Right, of course!" she blurted out, turning around and seeming to forget where she was, like this was her first time and she no longer knew which direction was which. "If you'll follow me I can take you to her. She's probably asleep now, we had to give her a sedative for - well. You know her condition, I presume."

The nurse waved them towards a door at the end of the hallway. 

"Do try not to disrupt her," she frowned then, her eyes boring into Harry and Malfoy like she suspected them of visiting for the sole purpose of disruption. "She's had a hard couple of days."

"We'll be careful," Harry reassured her, because Malfoy had already taken off towards the door, fast strides that were just-this-side of running. Harry had to jog to catch up again, finally meeting him outside the door. "You okay?" he asked, directing the last question at Malfoy, and he nodded sharply.

He pushed through the door, Harry behind him.

Narcissa was lying back on a bed, frail and asleep, looking for all the world like she was dead. Her hands were clasped primly in front of her. It was the kind of look Harry would expect of pre-war Narcissa - the picture of regality, poise even when she was asleep. It wasn't what he'd expected of this Narcissa, tortured by the war and the memories that played before her eyes incessantly.

Malfoy sat down beside her, studying her posture as though it would give him some clue. Harry lowered himself into a chair on the other side of the bed as Malfoy drew his knees to his chest, once more hugging them close.

"She's better off here," Harry said quietly to Malfoy, who gave no indication that he'd heard. "They'll take good care of her, even if she's a Malfoy."

Malfoy looked up, and now there was a hint of what Harry had expected after Azkaban - eyes slipping partially shut, a hunted look about him. 

He looked back down at Narcissa.

"Why did they do this to her?" he whispered, voice hoarse. "She didn't deserve any of it. She helped defeat him in the end."

"I know," Harry sighed. "It's hard to see scapegoats as people. That's the whole point."

"She isn't going to get better," Malfoy said — again, acting as though he hadn't even heard Harry. "The curse is too powerful. It's the kind of thing that's irreversible. Even if you could turn it back, there would be so much damage to her mind that..." he trailed off. 

Harry looked down at her again. He wouldn't have been able to tell from her appearance that she spent her days being chased by screams and spells and flashes of light, the same way Harry had been in the few weeks after the war when it was the only thing he could think about, when it felt like the memories would always be this fresh and never have the chance to dull.

He looked back at Malfoy and understood finally that appearances said nothing. Not Malfoy's posture, not his careful words. Nothing about him that told of the personality that lay cloaked by polite gestures ingrained in his head from birth. It said nothing of how he liked to debate Quidditch and any other topic at hand, nothing of how he cared so deeply and tried even more deeply not to show it, nothing of how he wanted so badly to erase his past.

Harry looked at him, and his voice echoed inside his mind.

_I would have done the same for you._

"Would you actually have gone to Azkaban if it had been me instead of her?" Harry blurted out, regretting the question the moment he asked it but unable to do anything about it. 

"Would you have?" Malfoy asked, turning it around, and Harry knew the answer before it even crossed his mind.

"Yes."

"No surprise there," Malfoy snorted, and there was a hint of amusement to it. He granted Harry a small smile. "I don't think you could turn off your heroics even if you wanted to. It's part of you, isn't it, being a sacrifice?"

"No," Harry said immediately, if only to deny it. He paused. He knew that Malfoy's words had some truth to them, that he probably would have turned himself in to save a lot of people. It's what his purpose had been. It's what he'd been born to do. To save, to die, to help the rest of the world.

He'd been chosen.

"Well, I would have," Malfoy said finally, eyes still trained on his mother's features. "Even though I'm not a hero like you."

Harry wasn't sure what to say to that answer.

"Being a hero doesn't mean being like me."

Malfoy looked up at him then, gaze slowly dragging away from the tiny smile resting on his mother's lips, as though she was dreaming of sweet things instead of battles.

"Potter," he said finally. "You're the definition of a hero. You always have been."

Harry sighed and leaned back in his chair, letting his eyes close as he realized that it was the truth, that no matter what he did he'd always be seen as the hero.

"Is that what you think of me? That I'm a hero?"

"Well, you're also an idiot," Malfoy scoffed. "You barely know how to feed yourself and get enough sleep, your taste in music is atrocious, and your taste in Quidditch teams is even worse. Not to mention your sense of fashion - or lack thereof, if we're being honest. I could go on for hours, if you'd like."

"I'm good," Harry snorted, and something settled warm in his stomach. He never thought he'd see the day when he craved Malfoy's scathing tone of voice, a list of insults to go along with it. "I never wanted to be me, you know."

"I wanted to be you."

Malfoy said it so simply, like it was a fact and nothing more, like it was the most natural thing in the world.

"Why?"

"Why?" Malfoy asked incredulously. "You came to school and everybody instantly loved you. You had the attention of the whole world from the second you were about three years old, and you hadn't done anything of actual worth. You knew nothing about magic, but that didn't seem to make a difference, because you were Harry Potter, so why would that matter? And you were a Gryffindor. You were brave, you were noble, you were the house of the good. The house of the heros."

"Yes, well —“

"I was the opposite," Malfoy barrelled on. He was back to staring at his mother, his gaze tracing the lines of black and white hair that framed her face as though they'd been arranged that way. "I was the house of the evil, and nobody cared for me because I didn't have your approval. I wasn't your friend."

"You aren't really mad at me for not being your friend," Harry said disbelievingly.

"No. I wouldn't want to be my friend either," Malfoy laughed. "I was an awful child. My life rather seemed to revolve around attention and besting you, didn't it?"

"We've always been battling for the spotlight," Harry said with a short laugh. "On opposite sides."

"Not anymore," Malfoy shrugged.

"Which one? Fighting for the spotlight, or opposite sides?"

"Both."

Harry nodded, content with the answer, and he let his own gaze drift back to Narcissa. He tried to picture Malfoy as a child, sitting in bed while she told him stories to help him fall asleep. He wondered what it was like, growing up and feeling wanted from the beginning, like you had a place in the world from the moment of your birth. He imagined it felt rather like the moment he realized the Wizarding World was a thing — being loved for being alive.

He thought about what it would be like to have that taken away from him, and he started to realize what it might be like for Malfoy to look down upon his mother like this, broken and shattered. 

"I'm sorry about her," he murmured, not needing to specify who he meant by _her_.

Malfoy didn't answer. Perhaps because Harry was repeating himself.

"You can go," he said finally, still not moving his stare from his mother's chiseled face. "I'm going to be a while."

"Er —“ Harry wasn't sure if he was being dismissed or if he should offer to stay. 

"Potter," Malfoy said, with a voice that sounded more amused than anything. "I'm serious. You probably haven't slept in a long time, if I know you at all, and the last thing you need is to linger around a hospital for a _Malfoy_. Please go home."

Harry didn't bother to contest the disdain with which he said Malfoy, because he knew it would get them nowhere. So instead he nodded and stood up, glancing back at Malfoy once when he reached the door.

"You can call me if you need anything," he said quietly, and Malfoy gave him a small smile. "Also — you should sleep too. You've just spent a few days in Azkaban, and there's nothing easy about that."

"Thank you Potter," he said absentmindedly, but his full attention was now turned to his mother. Harry was only background noise, and he found that he didn't mind it much.

"No problem," Harry whispered, letting the door shut behind him. He stopped by the apothecary on his way home to buy another bottle of Dreamless Sleep, not bothering to worry about the fact that he'd been taking it far too often recently. It was helping him keep his temper under control, and that was always a good thing. Especially since he was planning to go back to the shop tomorrow, and the last thing he needed was to get angry at somebody who only wanted a tattoo design.

He went to Skin Deep immediately after that, stowing the purple potion in a pocket of his cloak. Dean was there, sitting in the back room with papers spread out all around him, his office looking almost as messy as Harry's. He had a pencil in his hand instead of a quill, the only time Harry had seen pencils being used in the wizarding world.

"Hey," he said, leaning on the doorframe and looking over at Dean. "I think I'm ready to come work again."

"Hmm," was all Dean said, his tongue trapped between his teeth and his pencil scratching away against the parchment. Harry took that as an invitation to come in, and he made his way to sit down next to Dean, drawing up a chair and looking over his shoulder. The design he was working on was beautiful, a picture of Hogwarts with towering spires, the Whomping Willow trapped in motion.

"What's that one for?" Harry asked, and that finally seemed to pull Dean out of his reverie. He sat down the pencil and yawned, rubbing at his face, not seeming to realize when it smudged a long line over his forehead. Harry smiled at the way it almost looked like his lightning bolt scar.

"This?" Dean asked, gesturing to the drawing. "Oh, I'm not really sure. I'm thinking about tattooing it for myself, actually. I was taking a break from everything else." He pushed the paper to the back corner of his desk, shuffling a few other half-done designs into a neat stack. "Enough about me though, how have you been?"

"Malfoy is out of Azkaban," Harry said immediately, wondering why that was the first thing his mind jumped to, tying to remember when Malfoy had become such an integral part of him. "And I'm managing my anger better, I think. And - I want to try doing some art."

"Do you?" Dean looked thrilled, ignoring the part about Malfoy entirely. "That's wonderful! We'd be able to take on more clients that way, if you wanted to help out with designs."

"Yeah," Harry nodded. "I want to try, at least." 

Dean smiled at him and leaned back in the chair, propping his arms up behind his head.

"I'm glad you're getting your life back together," he said with a smile, and Harry returned it, ignoring how the cloud of Dreamless encroached upon his vision as he did so.

"Me too." An idea popped into his mind then, something that he wondered how he hadn't thought of before. "Er... would you be open to another night out, like we used to do? It's been a while, but I miss seeing everyone. And I think I have to make up with Ron, and. Well. Anyways, it's fine if you don't, but -"

"That sounds lovely," Dean said, and it seemed like he genuinely meant it. "I can ask Ron and Hermione if you want. Neville and Luna too, and Ginny of course."

"And Malfoy," Harry said. It came out of his mouth without thinking. He didn't take it back.

"I'm sorry?" Dean frowned, his eyebrows knitting together in something that wasn't quite confusion. Closer to concern, perhaps, as though he thought Harry didn't quite understand what he'd said.

"I want to invite Malfoy also," Harry said, and it wasn't a question anymore. He almost laughed at the irony, at the fact that it was Dean who insisted he help Malfoy with a tattoo at first and himself who struggled against it, about the fact that the tables had now turned completely.

"I wouldn't mind," Dean said slowly. "But I'm not as sure about Ginny. Or Ron."

"I know," Harry sighed, because he could already picture their expressions if he came into the bar with Malfoy on his arm. Disbelief, outrage. They might leave without another word. "But he doesn't have anyone else, and he isn't bad. And if I'm going to make up with Ron and whoever else, they need to accept Malfoy."

"Okay," Dean conceded finally. "Invite Malfoy."

When Harry went back to his flat that night, there was a sense of accomplishment whirring through him that he couldn't escape. It was dulled slightly, the tug of last night's Dreamless still in effect, but it was there nonetheless. 

His life felt together for the first time since it'd been torn apart by Malfoy visiting the shop. 

He was making up with his friends, he'd successfully gotten Malfoy's freedom, he hadn't gotten angry in a long time, and he was taking up a new position at Skin Deep.

He lay back in his bed and reflected on everything with a smile on his face, washing down the success with a gulp of Dreamless that sent him off into a world of nothingness, ridding him of the nightmares that threatened to come back at any possible time.

His last thought before he drifted off was that he'd finally gotten everything under control.


	36. Chapter 36

Harry woke up in the hospital. He was distraught by how easy it was for him to recognize now, with the white walls and distinctive smell, with the low murmur that he'd come to know far too well. He bolted upright — at least, he thought he did, but his limbs and his chest and every inch of him felt weighed down, as though his blood had congealed into lead, as though he had some invisible force keeping him chained to the bed.

He looked up at the ceiling because it was all he could see, counting the miniscule squares that made it up, focusing as intently as he could so that he wouldn't lose count. He realized that he'd lost feeling in his fingertips, and it was slowly coming back, pinpricks that spread quietly along his skin.

He tried to move again, starting with the tips of his fingers, and he felt his pinky shift. The movement spread slowly from there, along his arms and down to his legs until he could shakily prop himself up in the bed, leaning back against the pillow, immensely grateful that he no longer had to count the squares in the ceiling.

"Mr. Potter," a nurse said, bustling into the room. "I saw that you were awake. Can you tell me how you're feeling?"

Apparently, Harry's physical ability didn't completely translate to his cognitive ability, because the words came in slowly to his brain and didn't quite puncture the fog around him.

"Er..." He trailed off before he'd really gotten started, grasping at words that weren't there for the taking. "Er... what was that?"

"Can you tell me how you're feeling?" she asked, more slowly this time, and had Harry been fully conscious, he probably would have been offended by the tone she took, the kind you might use when talking to someone young.

"I'm not," Harry said, the words out of him before he could realize. And then suddenly he knew it was true. There wasn't a hint of emotion inside him. "I'm not feeling."

The nurse nodded briskly.

"I suppose that's to be expected," she said with a sigh, and Harry didn't understand why he was here. His senses were coming back to him and he wanted to leave, because he felt fine other than his stunted emotions, something that wasn't unusual. It was just the residue of Dreamless, that was all.

"Why am I here?" he asked, struggling to swing his legs over the edge of the bed and ignoring the disapproving look that she cast him when he did that.

"Somebody committed you," she said simply. "They prefer to remain anonymous. Said you had an addiction to Dreamless Sleep and it was affecting other parts of your life, making you see the good in people that didn't exist or something like that. Said it was distorting your judgement."

Harry tensed. Every muscle in his body clenched, and he knew immediately who it had been.

"Ron," he hissed, clenching his fists. "Excuse me, is Ron Weasley here?"

The nurse looked down at her clipboard with a frown, eyes scanning the page, and she shook her head slowly, biting down on her lip.

"No," she said eventually, looking up. "But there is someone else here to see you. He asked to be notified when you woke up, but we usually ask the patient for permission first. Would you like to see —“ she squinted at the paper for a second, and then drew it closer to her face as though she didn't quite believe the name. "Draco Malfoy?"

"Yes please," Harry said with a breath of relief. "Can you send him in?"

"I'll be right back," the nurse said with a smile. "You stay there, and don't move." She said the last part rather strictly, with a glance towards his legs, which were still swung over the side of the bed.

"Right," Harry muttered when she left the room. 

Malfoy appeared in the doorway not too many seconds later, as though he'd been waiting on edge.

"We've got to stop meeting each other in hospitals and prisons," he said wryly, leaning against the doorway and crossing one leg over the other.

"Oh, shut up," Harry muttered, yawning and rubbing a hand over his eyes. "I'm perfectly fine, I'll have you know. Ron put me here because he thinks there's some kind of curse on me. He thinks you put me under a spell, just like everybody else." Harry wasn’t sure why he was lying. All he knew was that Malfoy couldn’t hear about the Dreamless Sleep, because then he’d have another person thinking he was addicted when he actually wasn’t. This was the easiest way to play it safe.

"Is that so?" Instead of sounding offended, Malfoy sounded rather amused, and it made Harry laugh.

"Apparently. I doubt you'd have the skill anyways."

"Don't push me, Potter," Malfoy said dangerously, mock-authority ringing through his voice. "You have no clue what I'm capable of."

"He thinks you slipped me a love potion," Harry said suddenly, remembering the earlier conversation he'd overheard. "He saw that article in the paper and he was convinced."

Malfoy snorted even louder, coming in to sit in the chair next to Harry's bed and drawing his legs up in that signature way of his. 

"I don't need a potion to make people fall in love with me," he said, gesturing to himself grandly. It was supposed to be a joke, Harry knew, recognizing that from a distance, but something about the words struck a little too close to home. He tried not to think about it, about Malfoy curled up in a chair next to him in the hospital, about the fact that Malfoy was the only one to come visit him.

"I'm sure you don't," Harry said, trying to make it seem offhand. "Anyways, can you call the nurse? I want to get out of here, they can't very well keep me against my will."

"Fine, Potter, of course I'll do exactly what you ask. I'll tend to your every whim and —“

"Shut up and get the nurse, will you?" Harry grumbled, hating how happy it made him to see Malfoy. He lay back against the bed. He shouldn't be feeling at all, let alone happiness. Usually the Dreamless took that all away. He did his best to ignore the voice in the back of his mind that reminded him _only extremely strong emotions can get through._

Malfoy laughed at him and walked out of the room again, turning right down the hallway. Harry let out a breath and closed his eyes, staring intently at the insides of his eyelids. They didn't look normal. There weren't splotches of color from where light had filtered in through the skin. No, instead it was a hazy cloud in place of the colors, a deep purple-black that reminded him of a bruise. 

He opened his eyes and tried to ignore it. He wasn't addicted, anyways. He could stop using Dreamless whenever he wanted. He just didn't like nightmares or being angry, that was all — and who did?

Malfoy came back with the nurse in tow. She looked a mix between cross and concerned, as though she already knew what Harry was going to say.

"I'm leaving," Harry said. "You can't keep me here."

"I suppose not," she said with a long-suffering sigh. "But I'm giving you a ban on buying any more Dreamless Sleep, and I'm sending you with potions that should help to gradually undo the effect it's having on your overall well being."

Harry could feel Malfoy's gaze on him, hot and inquiring, but he ignored it in favor of nodding reluctantly at the nurse. She handed him a potion that he knew he'd throw away as soon as he got home, and he followed after Malfoy, ignoring the way his legs felt slightly unsteady beneath him, like he was some kind of newborn doe who hadn't yet found their legs.

"Dreamless Sleep?” Malfoy asked when they got out of the nurse's sight. "What was that about?" 

"It was some lie Ron told her," Harry snorted, looking away and ignoring the tiny thread of guilt inside him. "I don't know anymore. It doesn't matter." It was a weak excuse, barely an excuse at all, and Harry knew it. He knew that there was almost no chance Malfoy would buy it, but for the first time in his life, Malfoy didn't seem inclined to argue.

"They told me Mother might recover," Malfoy said quietly as they walked side by side. Harry had no clue where they were going, but it didn't really seem to matter anyway.

"What?" he asked, stopping mid stride and turning to face Malfoy. "Really?"

"Not completely," Malfoy said, but there was a smile on his face that lifted the creases and lightened the bags under his eyes. "She'll still have horrible flashbacks and it'll still be difficult, but she might get better."

"Malfoy, that's — that's incredible," Harry said, and he couldn't help himself. He hugged Malfoy again, thankful for the warmth of another body because it meant he could almost convince himself that he was feeling the emotions he put on show.

"Yeah," he said quietly. "I should have brought her to the hospital sooner." Harry could hear the regret in his voice, and he hugged Malfoy tighter, wanting to convey just from that that Malfoy shouldn't blame himself for any of this. He knew telling Malfoy it wasn't his fault probably wouldn't help, so he settled for silence.

"I'm really glad she'd going to be okay," Harry said, finally letting go of Malfoy, ignoring when his hands lingered for a second longer than usual.

"Me too," Malfoy said, and he smiled at Harry.  

"Do you want to come get a drink?" Harry asked impulsively. "A few of us are going, probably a couple weeks from now. Hermione, Dean, Ron..."

"I'm not welcome with them," Malfoy said quietly, almost sadly, although it wasn't easy for Harry to read emotions in this state when his own were so horrifyingly dull.

"Yes you are," Harry insisted. "They're going to have to accept that you're my friend. I don't care if they're too caught up in the past. Besides, it's a chance for you to show them that you aren't the same person anymore."

"I don't know." Malfoy still sounded hesitant, shying away from the idea, but Harry understood.

"You don't have to decide now," he said. "But think about it, yeah? Let me know."

Malfoy looked at him in a way that said he probably wouldn't be coming, but Harry wasn't ready to accept no for an answer.

"Think about it," he said again, reiterating if only to ingrain the words in Malfoy's mind, as though somehow that might convince him to come. Malfoy nodded and gave him a tight-lipped smile that Harry accepted with a smile of his own.

"I will," Malfoy said, even if his tone contradicted it. 

Harry apparated back to his flat with his mind oddly disconnected, with his anger at Ron somewhere in that wall that was blocking out emotions, with whatever he felt towards Malfoy inaccessible for the time. 

He fell asleep that night with another gulp of potion and a cloud of bliss.


	37. Chapter 37

For the next three days, Harry brooded. He was back working full time at Skin Deep, sketching out pointless designs and experimenting with magic. 

Things suddenly felt like the way he had before, right after he'd designed the Narcissus tattoo. Malfoy no longer had any reason to come to Skin Deep, of course he didn't, but it made Harry inexplicably lonely. He had accepted that he missed Malfoy curling up in the armchair, had accepted that he desperately wanted Malfoy to come back.

But Malfoy didn't. Why would he?

Harry held onto that one tiny spark of hope, the one deep inside of him that said he might come with Harry on their night out, however reluctant he'd sounded at the suggestion.

Those three days that passed in a cloud, a never-ending purple haze that seemed to coat his life now. This is how it had been before, he recognized it now, right after the war had ended and the nightmares tore through him with a vengeance. Dreamless suppressed emotions. It took him into strange states where he wasn't sure if he was sleeping or awake, it sent him sleepwalking to dangerous places, it made his brain flip upside down.

Harry thought it was pure bliss.

It was the kind of thing he'd been looking for all along, the potion that had gotten him through the aftermath of his anger. It quelled everything he felt, made it easy to survive in the world without truly participating, watching from the sidelines as time passed him by.

It wasn't until Malfoy showed up that his timeline was thrown out of order.

He knocked on the door to Harry's office — that was the first sign. It was a smart rap, heavy and sharp. Dean didn't knock, Harry knew that, and nobody came directly back to his office.

"Who is it?" he called, and then the door swung open to reveal pointed features and white-blond hair.

"Potter."

Harry couldn't help the grin and he wasn't sure why he'd want to suppress it as Malfoy walked into the room and claimed the armchair for his own. He curled up and stared at Harry, one eyebrow raised.

"So," Harry said.

"So."

"Any particular reason you're here?" Harry asked it hesitantly, not sure if he wanted an answer, not sure if Malfoy needed a reason to be here. He didn't want him to need a reason.

"Yes, actually," Malfoy said, and a slow grin was spreading across his face. "I was wondering if you could help me design a tattoo." There was a hint of mischief in his voice as he said it, the kind that accompanied that slow-curling smile.

"What kind of tattoo?" Harry asked, narrowing his eyes.

"I was considering a lightning bolt, right here," Malfoy said innocently, moving one hand to gesture towards his temple.

"Oh, shove off," Harry rolled his eyes, and Malfoy laughed, leaning back into the chair and closing his eyes. His breathing came easy and in perfect time, a waking sleep that Harry knew intimately because of Dreamless. He took a closer look at Malfoy. Somehow he looked just as bad as he had in Azkaban, although Harry wasn't sure how that was possible. "Are you okay?"

"Mmm?" Malfoy hummed, letting one eye open as if both was too much effort. "Of course, Potter. I'm always okay."

"No you aren't," Harry scoffed. “You look like you've been in Azkaban. Or like something sucked out your soul.“

"Well, the Manor's essentially Azkaban, isn't it?" Malfoy asked, raising one eyebrow. "You've been there. There's so much Dark Magic that you can't walk a foot without running into it."

"Why don't you move?" Harry asked suddenly. "You aren't tied to the Manor anymore, with your mother in St. Mungo's. You can go somewhere else."

"Who would sell a house to a Death Eater?"

Harry let out a tired sigh, and he studied the ground beneath his feet carefully.

"Malfoy, I think you're underestimating —“

"You don't think I've tried?" Malfoy burst out. "Right after the war. When she was still okay. I was turned away by everyone, no surprise there. Usually they just laughed at me.“

"Then stay with me while we look," Harry blurted out. He wasn't sure where the words had come from, and he wasn't exactly sure where the idea had come from either. Malfoy shifted, drawing his cloak around him like a blanket, clinging to him and wrapping him in darkness.

"What?"

"You can sleep on the couch or whatever," Harry said dismissively. "I don't care. But I don't want you going back to the Manor. The magic isn't good for you, especially not being exposed to it for long periods of time."

Malfoy considered him for a long moment, his eyes roving over Harry's face like he was taking in every detail. It sent a shiver through Harry, one he didn't particularly care to examine, but he met Malfoy's gaze with what he hoped was one of equal intensity. All thoughts of a tattoo lay forgotten — in fact, everything seemed forgotten. Malfoy was the only thing left in the room. Dreamless helped him, crowding out the unnecessary details in the floor and walls and ceiling, narrowing down to Malfoy. It made everything seem simpler like that.

"I'm not taking charity," he said finally. He looked away, as though that was the end.

"For Merlin's — it doesn't have to be long, Malfoy, but my job is to work with magic and I know the toll magical traces can have in prolonged exposure and high quantities. Come for tonight at least, we can try to find something else. And if you keep sitting there and staring at me like I've insulted you, you can pay me back however much you see fit."

There was a long silence where it seemed like he was warring with himself. His jaw clenched. A muscle jumped. He gritted his teeth and then met Harry's eyes and finally, he shrugged.

"Fine, Potter," he said, adding on the surname as though saying it made him feel better. "Only because you insist."

"Of course," Harry rolled his eyes. "Whatever lets you sleep at night. Now, were you here for an actual tattoo or was it just to annoy me?"

Malfoy smirked. "A combination."

"Right, well, I have a lot to do," Harry said slowly, gesturing towards the stack of designs that were half-finished and not half as good as Dean's. He was feeling discouraged by only a day's worth of work, put down by the difficulty he hadn't been expecting when he decided to become a tattoo artist. Somehow, his half-arsed Narcissus design that Dean had fixed had given him a false confidence, and now he was flailing for that same ability.

"Do _you_ have any tattoos?" Malfoy asked curiously. His eyes flitted once over Harry's form. 

"Why do you ask?"

Harry wasn't sure why he hadn't answered immediately. He only had two at the moment. One was a snitch that spun around his body and was impossible to catch, and another was a tiny one on his ankle. A moon, a star, antlers, and a lily. 

"Curious," Malfoy shrugged.

"Only a couple. I should probably get more, endorsement for the shop and all that. I don't know what I'd get."

"Well, I can help you brainstorm," Malfoy said. It was as though he was thinking of reasons to let him stay, something that made Harry smile secretly down at his desk.

"Sure," he said, not wanting Malfoy to leave.

"Over lunch?" Malfoy asked, already standing up. "Don't pretend you were going to eat, because I can see right through you. You have to take care of yourself, Potter."

"I am," Harry insisted. "I'm sleeping, at least." Dreamless agreed with him, nodding his head and sending another swirl of mist to temporarily blot out his vision, like a rush of blood when he stood up. 

As they made their way to the shop, Harry remembered exactly why he'd missed Malfoy. Malfoy jumped straight into a list of possible tattoos Harry could get, rambling on and casting snide looks in his direction everytime he thought of — in his opinion — a particularly amusing tattoo idea.

"You could always get a giant lightning bolt," Malfoy snickered. "Extend the one you already have."

"Stop being an idiot," Harry muttered under his breath, unable to stop the smile. "I can't decide which is worse, me getting a bigger lightning bolt or you getting one on your forehead."

"There's nothing else for it, then," Malfoy declared. "We'll have to do both."

Harry shoved him,  and Malfoy smirked in response, staring straight forward and leading Harry to the coffeeshop. He walked with a purpose, posture still eerily good, each step sharp, and Harry had to hurry to keep up with them.

They took a seat, and Malfoy ordered without even asking what Harry wanted.

"Have you seen the papers recently?" Malfoy asked, taking a careful sip of his coffee like it was tea, his pinky barely touching the mug. "The Prophet is having a field day."

"No," Harry said. He'd unsubscribed, having enough with articles and rumors and sections about his favorite choice of robes. Or PotterWatch, the section where people sent in random pictures of strangers that they thought were Harry Potter doing things that Harry would never do. It was ridiculous, the enthusiasm for fame, and Harry had finally grown tired of it. 

"Ever since you broke me out of jail, there have been so many articles about the two of us that I can barely count."

Harry rolled his eyes, leaning back and crossing one leg over the other.

"What're they saying?" he asked, from a curious standpoint.

"They're convinced we're dating."

Malfoy said it strangely, his head tilted to the side when he asked like it was a question instead of a statement, but Harry couldn't even begin to figure out what the question might be. He wondered why simple words could twist his stomach into knots — wondered vaguely, in his panic, if it was actually physical. If there was actually something happening inside him or if it was all another illusion born in his mind.  

"Are they?" Harry asked lightly, trying to sound more calm than he felt.

"Completely," Malfoy smirked. "In fact, there have been a few more pictures in PotterWatch -"

"I don't want to know," Harry groaned, dropping his head into his hands. "There's been enough speculation about my nonexistent love life."

"Yes, well, it isn't nonexistent anymore," Malfoy snorted. "You're dating me, according to everyone else."

"Am I?" Harry asked. It was meant to come out in a joking way, a jest in the same way Malfoy had said it, but when it slipped out it sounded serious. It sounded almost like he was asking Malfoy a serious question.

Malfoy's eyes widened fractionally — his lips parted infinitesimally. He looked at Harry for a long moment, tongue darting out to wet his lips like he'd forgotten how to speak English.

"Can I get you anything else?" 

The waiter's voice cut through the strange reverie around them, the bubble that clouded out everything else, the way Dreamless so often did. Blurring away the edges until they were no longer visible. 

Harry started and looked at her, nudging the cup with a forefinger and coughing to smooth over the strange tension.

"Er — no, I think I'm fine," Harry said, staring down at his mug.

"Fine," Malfoy said, and Harry took great pleasure in the fact that he sounded flustered too. The waitress nodded at them politely and made her way to another table.

"Right," Malfoy said, letting out a tiny noise, like he had something stuck in his throat. "Should we —?” He gestured back in the direction of Skin Deep and looked at Harry with a question in his eyes.

"We could." Harry shrugged. "But my lunch break isn't over, and we still haven't come up with a tattoo idea, if you wanted to stay."

"Okay," Malfoy said, and he granted Harry another one of those rare smiles and settled in, the article completely forgotten by both of them as though it had never happened in the first place. 

The day drew to a close quicker than most, or perhaps Malfoy just made time move in different ways. He'd overseen most of Harry's designs, making comments here and there and ignoring when Harry brushed him off with exasperation.

"You're not bad," he said, tilting his head to consider a lopsided wolf. "Drawing from memory isn't easy."

Harry sighed and threw the quill down on his desk.

"Feels like it should be," he yawned. "I fought in a war, but I can barely draw a picture. It's kind of ridiculous."

"You can't compare the two," Malfoy frowned, and Harry nodded. 

"Whatever. You want to come back to mine now? Unless there's anything you need at the Manor, you can stop by there first, I don't mind. I probably have enough for some kind of dinner."

"I — yeah," Malfoy said, his words catching, and Harry realized that he'd never hear Malfoy stutter before.

He held out his arm, the same courtesy of sidealong that Malfoy had afforded Harry for visiting the hospital. Malfoy took his arm, fingers long, almost caressing, and Harry did his best not to think about that touch in any other context than apparition. His hand lingered when they appeared outside Harry’s flat, but Harry ignored it, trying to shut down the tingle that ran up his arm.

"How bad is it?" Malfoy said with dramatic trepidation, staring at Harry's flat like it might explode if he went inside.

"What — oh," Harry said, realizing what Malfoy had asked and remembering the mess he'd come home to the last time Malfoy visited his flat. "It's not bad," he said lamely, and he strode forwards to open the door. Malfoy strode past him, purposefully again, his shoes a sharp tap against the concrete.

No matter the state of his house, Harry always liked coming home. He even treasured the unpleasant sensation of apparition when it meant he was coming home. It was his place, the one place in the world where he wouldn't be bothered, the one thing that was his to do with what he wanted. It was a place where he could work and sleep and watch crappy muggle television and nobody would be a part of it except him. And now, it seemed, Malfoy.

"Not so bad," Malfoy muttered, flicking his wand and ignoring Harry's noise of protest. The dirty socks strewn across the living room floor straightened up and folded themselves, landing neatly in a pile.

"Er — yeah," Harry said, suddenly nervous. He shouldn't have been, but he was suddenly overtly aware of the fact that it was only the two of them. He felt alone — not in a bad way, not lonely — but alone. Only him and Malfoy alone, _dangerous_ alone, don't-do-anything-stupid alone. The kind of alone that could get him in trouble if he wasn't careful. "Make yourself at home."

Malfoy didn't need the invitation. He was already kicking back in an armchair and yawning, rubbing at his eyes in one of those odd displays that made Harry see a sudden vulnerability in him.

"You have water?" he asked, and Harry rolled his eyes, because the tap was right behind him and Malfoy could easily get it himself. Nevertheless, he went to fill up a glass of water for Malfoy and then took a seat on the couch, handing it over.

"You don't have a job," Harry said, realizing suddenly. He wasn't sure why he hadn't noticed that before.

"No," Malfoy said ruefully. "I did up until Mother went to St. Mungo's. Taking care of her was a full-time job."

"Right," Harry said. "But before that? Before she was cursed?“

"I had a muggle job," Malfoy shrugged. "Something with finances. I wasn't paying much attention, it was all stuff I could do with magic easily, even though that’s _technically_ a crime. Nobody in the wizarding world would give me a job, of course. No surprise there."

Harry sighed and looked away, still upset by the fact that Malfoy wasn't given a chance in the world.

"Doesn't matter, Potter, I'll find something."

"You should come work at Skin Deep," Harry said suddenly, the words out of his mouth before he could even mull them over.

Malfoy laughed, seeming to find the proposal amusing, and he shook his head.

"I have no desire to become an artist. Not now, probably not ever."

"Okay, well you don't have to actually be an artist. I haven't actually talked about this with Dean, mind you, but we could probably use someone to organize schedules and whatnot."

Malfoy considered him carefully, tongue trapped thoughtfully between his teeth.

"You spend most of your time there anyway," Harry pointed out, yawning and closing his eyes. "Whatever, it doesn't really matter. But if you ever need something to do."

"I'll keep it in mind," Malfoy said, and it reminded Harry of something he'd said earlier. Something from when he'd been at the hospital, another offer that he'd promised to consider. Then Harry remembered and an idea zapped through him.

"I'll make you a deal," Harry said suddenly, and he opened his eyes to find Malfoy watching him in a considering way, head tilted to the side and resting against the heel of his hand, propped against the arm of the couch.

"I'm listening," Malfoy drawled slowly.

"You remember how you said you didn't want charity?" Harry asked, and there was a wary look to Malfoy's gaze now.

"Of course," he said. "What's your offer?"

"You come to the bar with my friends and I, like I was talking about," Harry said simply. "That's all I ask. Then your debt for me giving you a place to sleep is repaid.“

Malfoy stared at him, incredulous, eyebrows doing something strange. It was like he wasn't sure whether to be confused or shocked.

"You're really still going out with them?" he asked, and everything about the tone of his voice was dubious. "Even after Ron had you put in St. Mungo's when there was nothing wrong with you?"

"Especially because of that," Harry muttered.

"So what you're really saying is that you're going to have it out with Ron and you want someone to back you up," Malfoy said, smirking at Harry. "Is that right?"

"Something along those lines," Harry said waving him off. "You'll come, then?"

"It's not as though I really have a choice," Malfoy grumbled, but he didn't look overly displeased about it. "I don't understand you one bit, but if that's what you want as payment, then so be it Potter."

Harry felt a rush of success inside of him, staring at Malfoy and wondering when this had become his life. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am now drinking cheerios and it's immensely satisfying.


	38. Chapter 38

Malfoy slept on the couch. Harry turned in early as well, not wanting to think about why Malfoy’s form curled on the couch and heavy with sleep made him think things he shouldn’t think. It was especially difficult when it looked like every barrier had been stripped away from Malfoy, vulnerable as he was, chest rising and falling in the grips of sleep.

Harry still had two bottles of Dreamless on the table beside his bed, tantalizing in their presence. Harry thought back to the past couple of weeks, to how he hadn’t even erupted once, how his anger felt like he had it completely under check now.

He wondered how Ron could think this was _bad_ for him. Maybe there were side effects, but it chased away the terrors when the world grew dark and it chased away his reactions to terrors of the day.  

He poured a tiny bit into a cup beside his desk and swallowed it down, feeling the easy slide of it down his throat, disorienting in how cold it was, like drinking ice water on a summer day. It didn’t look like that — the purple made it seem warm in a way that it wasn’t. He drank back the potion, feeling the immediate relief inside of him, feeling the clouds that swept so mercifully over him, a respite from everything in the world.

Darkness slipped over him in a rush. For that one moment, he knew what dying might feel like, because sleeping with Dreamless was quicker and easier than falling asleep.

Harry awoke to bony fingers shaking his arm, a voice above him that sounded unreasonably frantic.

“Wake up, Potter,” it said, and a form swam into his vision, too blurry to make out clearly. Harry tried to tell Malfoy he was awake, but his temporary paralysis was still in effect, freezing him to the bed. He let his eyes flutter closed again, trying to ignore the incessant shaking and wanting to let the cloud take him instead.

The fingers tightened, fingernails digging in, and Harry slowly came out of it, fingers twitching as the spasms moved along his limbs.

“M’awake,” he murmured, words slurred together by the clouds that still had him partially in their grasp. “Don’worry.”

“Potter, stand _up.”_ The voice was more insistent this time, not only telling him but dragging him out of the bed. Harry went with it reluctantly, his thoughts latent, not able to catch up with a force pulling him away.

“What?” he mumbled, not entirely sure what was happening. He didn’t understand the shapes all around him and he felt randomly at the wall, cool and smooth under his hand.

There was no answer. The grip just kept dragging him — to where, Harry wasn’t quite sure, but he didn’t have the energy to struggle. They finally made it to Malfoy’s apparent destination, where he pushed Harry down into a chair and pushed a bowl over to him, sitting across in his own chair.

Harry shook his head. He knew from experience that it wouldn’t help, but he did it anyway, like the fog was a physical thing swirling around his head that could be dismissed if he pushed it away. He could see Malfoy still watching him, eyes filled with something akin to concern. Harry didn’t want him to be concerned — he had to let Malfoy knew that there was nothing at all to worry about. He just needed a moment to regain his senses, that was all.

He ate breakfast slowly, finally able to conjure enough thoughts to speak.

“Sorry,” he murmured. “I’m tired. I’m not good at waking up in the morning.” 

Malfoy didn’t say a thing at first. He took another bite of the cereal he’d poured for himself, looking so strangely muggle that it almost made Harry laugh. Then he reached into his cloak, the pooling black fabric that spread out around him, and he retrieved a bottle, clinking against his fingernails. Harry recognized it immediately and leaned towards it. Purple mist swirling enticingly around the neck of the bottle.

“What is this?” Malfoy asked, and the way he said it made Harry think he already knew exactly what it was.

“Dreamless sleep,” Harry said. “I take it for nightmares.” 

It wasn’t a lie, at least not completely. An omission of the truth at worst. Either way, Malfoy seemed to pick up on it immediately, and he shook his head, staring at the bottle. His reflection was distorted — by the glass or the mist, Harry wasn’t sure.

All he knew was that Malfoy was watching him with something like disappointment or perhaps concern. Maybe a mix of the two, if he thought about it. 

“And you were given this by a Healer,” Malfoy said blandly. Harry could tell by his tone of voice that it was useless for him to pretend, that Malfoy was already onto him, but he still had this tugging resistance, this aversion. He wasn’t sure what Malfoy would say about the truth. 

“I —”

“And you’re taking the proper dose.”

“I don’t —”

“That’s why Ron wanted you in the hospital, isn’t it?” Malfoy asked. “Because you’re using too much of this and it’s messing with you. It’s because you can’t stop using Dreamless Sleep.”

Harry wasn’t sure what to say. It was useless to lie, useless because Malfoy already knew the truth. 

“Merlin, Potter,” Malfoy said, rubbing a hand over his face. “Why wouldn’t you just tell me? Why did you lie when I asked you at the hospital?”

"Because I'm not addicted," Harry muttered. It was hard to get the words out — his lips felt numb, like they hadn't been built to form the right shapes to make words. "I use it sometimes to help with nightmares, but I'm not addicted. I didn't want you to worry." 

"You're not addicted," Malfoy scoffed, shaking his head. Normally, Harry would be angry at his tone, but he felt objective and somehow unable to get angry, like the emotion was completely inaccessible. "But you ignore when the nurse tells you you're not allowed anymore, and you're acting like you're still asleep." 

"I'm not..." Harry trailed off. He shook his head again, because right now he needed a clear mind if he was going to make Malfoy understand that he was okay, that this was the best his life had been in a long time. 

“Potter, do you know what happens if you overdose on Dreamless Sleep?”

“It helps you sleep,” Harry muttered, still not connecting pieces of his brain that he felt like he should be able to connect. There were words coming out of his mouth, but no matter how hard he concentrated on them, he couldn’t quite puzzle out their meaning.

“It helps you sleep _forever,”_ Malfoy amended. He stood up and started pacing, picking at his sleeve in an agitated kind of way. Harry didn’t understand what he was so worked up about. “It kills you. You fall asleep and then you never wake up.”

“I’m careful,” Harry said. They were just words now, with no attachment to the actual world. Words, letters, combinations of sounds that he’d learned from birth. “I’m not going to overdose or anything.”

“Maybe not on purpose.”

“Will you stop worrying about me?” Harry asked. From somewhere, he understood that this was the kind of thing he’d say if he was angry, if he could feel actual emotions. “Don’t you see that I’ve finally gotten my life together? Why do you have to contradict everything I’m doing?”

“Gotten your life together?” Malfoy asked, with an incredulity that should have lit some fire underneath Harry, sizzling through his bones, post-war fragile. But it didn’t. It merely made Harry look at him, study him, as though he was a specimen instead of a friend. Malfoy bolstered on. “You’re not _together,_ Potter. Maybe you think you are because you’ve stunted all your emotions so you can ignore all your problems. You haven’t even yelled at me yet.”

Harry didn’t say anything. He stared at Malfoy.

“Where are those bottles?” Malfoy asked suddenly, stopping to stare at Harry. “ _Where are they?”_

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Harry said, his voice dull. “I don’t have any —”

“The antidotes,” Malfoy hissed, and Harry felt a twinge of unease inside him, emotion that he could barely feel but was there nonetheless. He didn’t want Malfoy to look at him like that. “The potions the nurse gave you. Where are they?”

“My room,” Harry muttered. “Not sure where.” 

Malfoy stormed out of the room and Harry was left feeling numb, staring around him and trying to decipher when it all fell apart. It had been so perfect — everything, coalescing into what he’d believed to be okay. 

 Malfoy came back down with a vial in his head, shaking slightly. From what emotion, Harry wasn’t exactly sure.

“Drink this,” Malfoy said, shoving the bottle towards Harry. “It’ll get rid of all the effects of Dreamless for the moment.” Harry took it from him reluctantly, holding it up to investigate it from all angles. “ _Drink it,”_ Malfoy said, more violently this time, so Harry did.

It was a tidal wave — there was no other way to describe it, the sudden release of pent up energy that tore through him with the force of a natural disaster — unheeding, unhindered by petty desires. A force of the world that couldn’t be stopped simply by wishing it away, because it was there, tearing through all the roots that had grown.

And tearing Harry's mind apart. It was as though he'd grown a protective shell over pieces of his mind, a cloud that surrounded him, Dreamless taking over all his senses, and this shattered it. It broke through the illusion, pushed aside all the smoke that shrouded his thoughts, and set everything free to rattle through his skull like a ping pong ball. 

He stared at Malfoy, unable to do anything but gape. He didn't have any words. He was too awash with emotions, with feelings, with experiencing the world instead of just taking it in, with living instead of being alive. Malfoy's anger had subsided to a simmer now, a slow crescendo that had slowly turned into something like pity — but when Harry looked closer, he knew it was just concern. He knew it was because Malfoy cared. 

"I —“ he gasped out. He wasn't sure what to do, because everything was struggling for space, and he didn't have enough room inside him to deal with any of it. He wanted Dreamless so desperately, to slip off into darkness and wake up feeling barely a thing. He knew it wasn't supposed to do that, to limit your emotions. Only in extreme quantities did it ever become that harmful. 

"So you weren't addicted?" Malfoy confirmed, looking at Harry consideringly. 

"Shut up," Harry muttered, rubbing at his head. There was a headache building right behind his temples, a slow nudge that he knew would grow until it was a physical representation of what was happening in his brain. 

"Why did you do this to yourself?" Malfoy asked, sitting down and ceasing his pacing. "I don't understand. You're Harry Potter, out of all people. You have everything you could ever wish for, and people are waiting hand and foot if there's something else you need." 

"Is that what you think of me?" Harry snarled, and instead of recoiling, Malfoy clapped his hands. Almost gleeful. 

"You're angry," he said with a smirk. "Good." 

"You're goading me on purpose," Harry realized with a sinking feeling, and he shook his head at Malfoy. "You're —“

“You’re a mess, Potter,” Malfoy interrupted him calmly. “You aren’t talking to your best friend because he tried to help you with an addiction you firmly denied, emotions are too difficult for you — and when you do feel them, they get out of control, and you’re pretending to yourself that everything is perfectly fine when it’s really close to the opposite.”

“I know.” Harry buried his face in his hands, mind still spinning threads to a web he didn’t want to build, screaming at him in a hundred different voices. “I don’t know what to do about it.” His voice was hoarse, and he felt like he’d been thrown off his course, his orbit altered without telling him so that he no longer had any idea where his path was or where he was going.

He didn’t usually do things like this, talking to people honestly, admitting his failures. Usually he blustered through. Ever the brave Gryffindor.

“You should talk to Weasley, first of all,” Malfoy said, leaning back. “Not that I have any idea what you see in him —” a wrinkled nose to accompany the words “— but apparently he means a lot to you.”

“If he won’t accept you —”

“Talk to him,” Malfoy said. “Try.”

“You’re coming to bar night,” Harry said after a pause where Malfoy stared at him so intently that he felt like he was being read. 

“Per your request,” Malfoy acquiesced, nodding slowly. “What of it?”

“I’ll talk to him then,” Harry said confidently. “I probably won’t see him until, and it’s just easiest that way.”

“Fine,” Malfoy said. “Deal. Until then, you have to stop taking Dreamless Sleep and keeping your emotions all bottled up like that. You know that’s why you get so angry, right? You keep it bottled up and then it all comes out at once.”

“Yeah,” Harry said. He would agree to anything at the moment, his head too full of a thousand other things. He wanted Malfoy to disappear, wanted to be alone with his thoughts or a bottle of Dreamless, wanted the world to disappear. There was too much all at once, even if it was a torture of his own making, and he wanted nothing more than to curl up in a ball.

“I want a tattoo,” Malfoy said suddenly, standing up again. He’d been up and down all morning, pacing and sitting agitatedly, fiddling with his robes and standing up only to sit down a second later.

“What?”

“I want a tattoo,” Malfoy repeated impatiently, and Harry felt a rush of relief to know that Malfoy was still in there. “And we were planning another for you, weren’t we?”

“Yeah,” Harry said, and he understood what Malfoy was trying to do. Getting him to Skin Deep, distracting him from everything that seemed to plague him no matter what he did. “Okay. Let’s go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay here's the deal. I'm okay at writing the build up to their relationship, but I'm awful at writing endings, I just get lost and have no idea what to do. SO if the ending sucks I apologize in advance, I did my best with it and I'm trying to get better 😂


	39. Chapter 39

Walking into the bar felt like an entirely different world. Harry remembered when it used to be a respite, a veil that shaded him from judgement, from having to be who everyone thought he was. He remembered right after he’d gotten fired from the Aurors, when it felt too overwhelming, a pulsing mass of bodies that no longer held any appeal.

But now, everything was different. There was a friction fizzing through the air, jumping along the floor to the time of steps, sending electricity hot through Harry’s legs. He felt uncountably anxious, energy storing in his muscles as though it was coiling in preparation, a snake waiting to strike.

It was as though his body knew there was confrontation coming and he was lying in wait. He walked through the masses that swayed with reckless abandon and took a seat at the bar, looking around him. He was early, wanting to dull some of his nerves with the sting of alcohol lingering in the back of his throat. 

“Something strong,” Harry said to the bartender with a nod. “I don’t care what.”

He passed over a couple galleons and knocked back the glass, relishing the way it felt like there was pure adrenaline in his veins.

He didn’t want to fight. He didn’t want any of this, actually — he wanted Ron back. He wanted Hermione and easy conversations and everything he didn’t have. Even alcohol was nothing compared to Dreamless, emotions still filling him when he least wanted it. 

Ron was always easy to spot among a crowd of people. In the past, before everything, it would have been the awkward way he walked — legs too lanky, limbs too long for his body, hair too bright red. 

Now it was almost the opposite, a confident swagger that came with his time among the Aurors, too naïve to have grown completely into the role, feeling like he was weathered already after only a little while. His hair was still the same hue, standing out like a beacon in the middle of the crowds, and Harry looked down to stare at the bar.

He had no idea how to feel about Ron. He didn't understand why Ron was so averse to Malfoy, after all the time that had passed. He didn't want this to come between their friendship.

It was as though Harry's thoughts had summoned him, because at that moment the door swung open again, creaky on its hinges. Malfoy was also visible because of his distinctive hair, the color — or lack of it — that reflected the light of the club. The way he walked wasn't _confident_ , exactly, but it was calculated. Practiced. 

Harry didn't avert his eyes this time, because he felt unable to. Malfoy had this magnetism about him that captured Harry's gaze even if he didn't want it to. Harry couldn't look away, because it hit him so suddenly, all the emotions that Dreamless had been helping him to hold back.

He liked Malfoy. It didn't help that he'd grown up, that his frame had filled out since he was a student, that he now looked almost comfortable in his own skin. The tattoo didn't help either, his sleeves rolled up to mid-forearm to reveal the curling Narcissus flowers that decorated his skin. 

Harry gulped and took another swig of his drink, feeling the swallow more distinctly than usual. He took a deep breath and stood up to catch Malfoy's attention. 

Malfoy spotted him quickly and came over, a small smirk on his face.

"This is your idea of fun?" he asked, adopting a look that clearly said he was above all this, and Harry rolled his eyes.

"Shut up,” he muttered. "No complaining."

Malfoy let out a huff of annoyance and leaned against the bar, as though he was surveying the land, scanning the perimeter for danger.

"Weasel is here," he said, quiet enough that Harry could barely hear him over anything. He turned back to lean on the counter, forearms supporting him, the flowers swaying slightly over his skin.

"I know."

They were facing the same way now, but they weren't looking at each other. Harry took a deep breath and cast a glance over his shoulder to where Ron was standing next to Hermione, their shoulders bumping, a laugh painted on his face.

"Are you going to go talk with him?" Malfoy asked, glancing over towards Harry and tracing idle shapes on the bar with his fingertip. "You probably should, seeing as you're the one who invited him."

"I will," Harry sighed. He stood up reluctantly, and Malfoy turned with him, back to surveying the scene. "Are you coming?"

"Me?" Malfoy asked with surprise. "I thought you'd want to talk with him alone."

"Please," Harry said in a low voice, not ready to face anybody's wrath yet, even with a song swimming inside of him that was urging the monster to burst out.

"Fine," Malfoy shrugged. They made their way over to where Ron was standing. Luna and Ginny were there too, her arm wrapped around Dean's waist. Luna was the first to spot Harry, and she waved cheerily at him. 

"Hi Harry!" she called, and heads turned in his direction. They were happy for the most part, swept up in the atmosphere that consistently shifted around them, lights and sound that made it difficult to frown. The expressions slipped as they caught sight of something behind Harry. Harry didn't have to look around to know that Malfoy was hovering right there.

"Hey," Harry said, doing his best not to clench his teeth. "How are you?"

"Oh, I'm wonderful," Luna said, still smiling as much as before, apparently oblivious to the tension around her. A silence fell, heavy, palpable. Malfoy stood awkwardly beside Harry with his back straight and his hands fiddling with his cuffs. There was a long second.

"Er — that's great, Luna."

Another silence. Hermione glanced nervously towards Ron and Harry avoided everyone's eyes. After the lull stretched out into torturous, Malfoy shifted beside Harry.

"I'm going to leave," he murmured, turning around, and Harry grabbed onto his arm without thinking.

"Don't," he said. Malfoy shook his head and started to walk. Harry hurried after him, the conversation picking back up behind him, tense whispers this time that followed him as he ran after Malfoy. "Malfoy, hold on!"

He paused by the door, looking back at Harry.

"What?"

"Don't leave," Harry insisted. "They're just not used to you, that's all."

"They don't want me here," Malfoy hissed. "Nobody does. I told you this was a bad idea, but you had to drag me here anyway." The lights were throwing him into sharp relief, and Harry tried to steady himself.

"I want you here," Harry insisted.

"You can't even call me by my first name," Malfoy scoffed, and then he was turning and walking out the door, his shoes clacking with a sound that Harry was surprised he could hear over the din. He wanted to chase after Malfoy — he could have caught him, probably, with his slow steps and bloody perfect posture — but he forced himself to stay rooted in one place.  

And then he turned. He looked over the club, surveying it like Malfoy had, wondering if he was supposed to call Malfoy _Draco_ now.

His eyes caught on Ron and the rest of them, standing in a circle. It looked like they were whispering from this distance, shoulders hunched, heads leaning together, and Harry wanted to erupt. He wanted all of this to end. He wanted his friends, he wanted Malfoy, he wanted those to thing to be able to work together, he wanted —

How was he supposed to choose?

He walked back over, dejected, and their circle parted slightly to let him in, looking expectantly at him.

"Malfoy left," Harry muttered, staring at his feet. He saw other people shuffling their feet slightly. Not to the music — merely a shifting of balance, something to occupy them and make them feel less awkward.

"That's a shame," Luna said brightly. "I wanted to talk with him."

"You were the only one," Harry said bitterly, still staring at the ground. "What do you all have against him?" The last part burst out of him without his permission, and he tried to bite his tongue, to take it back, but it was already there.

He didn't want them to fight. He wanted to come here and have a good time, to catch up, to reconcile with his friends. But the echo of Malfoy still stood beside him.

"What do you think, mate?" Ron asked, sounding exhausted. "Do you really have to ask?"

"Is he going to be on trial forever?" Harry asked, glaring around at them and finally garnering the courage to hold people’s gazes. "He made mistakes. Bad choices. He was forced into a war and he did things when he saw no other way out. He had terrible ideas, sure, but it's been a long time since the war and you still can't seem to move on."

"Harry," Ron said slowly. "I know that's what you think, but —“

"Don't you trust me?" Harry yelled, ignoring the slight looks other people gave him. There was enough noise that it didn't make much of a difference. People peeled away from the circle now, Luna taking Ginny's hand and twirling her onto the dance floor, Dean slowly walking after him and Hermione lingering uncertainly to the side, as though she wasn't sure if this involved her.

"Trust you? No, Harry, I don't! That's part of the bloody problem!" Ron yelled back.

"You don't trust me," Harry said, voice hollow. He wasn't sure why that struck him so hard, and he stared at Ron like he didn't know who he was. It wasn't the first time, he thought briefly, remembering the Triwizard Tournament, but it stung like it was the first time.

"I trust your intentions," Ron amended quickly. "But I don't trust your judgement. Especially not when it comes to Malfoy, mate. You get — well, you get obsessed, and then you forget about the rest of the world and..."

"No I don't!" Harry insisted. 

"You've barely talked to us," Hermione said quietly from the side. "You get very wrapped up in him. We're not saying that he’s necessarily bad, Harry —“ Ron let out a scoffing noise, "We're just trying to look out for you."

"I don't need you to look out for me!" Harry erupted. "I can take care of myself!"

"You know I came to see you in your flat, right?" Ron asked. "You hadn't stopped by in a while, we were on bad terms because of the trial and everything...I wanted to talk with you."

"I don't remember," Harry frowned, wracking his brains, trying to imagine how he could have missed that.

"That's because you wouldn't wake up," Ron said firmly, and there was a muscle jumping in his jaw, that telltale sign that said he was worked up. "I tried to shake you. I even cast a stinging charm. I called your name. And then I saw the bottle of Dreamless Sleep next to your bed, and.."

"I'm sorry," Harry muttered instinctively.

"You know that's how it happened after the war, right?" Ron asked, looking at him with something sad, something close to pity. "You got angry first, then you numbed all your emotions, then you ended up in the hospital because of Dreamless Sleep. You say you can take care of yourself, but you aren't doing it.”

"And we're afraid Draco's the reason you're spiraling again," Hermione said quietly. "It started again when he came to Skin Deep. You were getting better until he came by, but now you're back to where you started."

"It isn't his fault," Harry insisted, and he looked around himself. "I'm serious."

"Let's go get a table," Hermione said after a moment, and she looked towards Ron with a question in her eyes, and he nodded back to her.

"Sure," Harry said, and they made their way over to a table they usually used, reserved for them whenever they wanted. Harry took a seat, thinking about how long ago it'd been when he'd last come here with his friends.

They sat down, and Harry looked over at Ron.

"I miss you," he said, and he knew it was true the moment he said it. "You're my best mate."

"I miss you too," Ron sighed.

"But you have to get over this Malfoy thing," Harry said. "I'm friends with him now, and I don't want to choose between you and him. I'm not asking you to like him, but I need you to be respectful to him at least."

"Were you listening to what we said, though?" Ron asked. "I'm not sure he's good for you."

"You know he visited me at the hospital," Harry said quietly. "And he took away my Dreamless Sleep when he saw what I was doing. And he never lets me get away with being angry."

Hermione nodded, a small smile on her lips, but Ron still looked skeptical.

"But he was the one that made you angry in the first place."

"He brought back my past," Harry admitted. "The war. Stuff before that. Things that I was trying to forget and put behind me, but every time I looked at him that was all I could see. I'm not sure if it was him that made me so angry or... the world."

"I see," Ron said quietly. "You know I had to go to the hospital because of you. You hurt me.”

"I know," Harry said quietly. He paused a long moment, and he knew he had to get everything out in the open now. "That's why Ginny and I broke up."

Ron frowned, tilting his head. “That doesn’t make sense, you broke up before you hurt me.”

"No, I mean — I hurt her."

Ron froze and looked at Harry, eyes growing wide, and Harry felt the familiar tug of guilt, the fish hooks that were permanently lodged in his gut.

"What?"

"It was an accident," Harry whispered. "It wasn't anything serious, but there's no excuse. I was angry, my magic got away from me, I hurt her."

"I — Merlin, Harry," Ron said, mouth still agape. "No wonder you didn't want to tell me. I probably would've skinned you alive."

"You won't now?" Harry asked hopefully.

"I'm pissed, don't get me wrong, but... mate, you really need to get yourself under control. At the moment I’m more worried about you than my sister. She can take care of yourself. You? You need to stop getting mad and stop taking Dreamless Sleep and stop hurting people on accident.”

"Thanks for the tip," Harry muttered sarcastically. "I hadn't thought of that one yet, believe it or not.”

Hermione frowned at him disapprovingly, and Harry shook his head, sighing. The bar was still as unappealing as the night he'd been fired. It was sweaty and loud and filled with an energy he no longer had, a thirst for confrontation that had soured in his mind and filled him with the undeniable feeling of being stale. Old, worn out. He looked over at Ron and Ron looked back at him.

"Friends?" he asked hesitantly, scared that Ron would shake his head or say something about getting rid of Malfoy, but instead Ron shrugged. He looked as tired as Harry did, like the world had worn him down and he didn't have the energy to fight it anymore.

"Friends," he said, and then gave a jaunty grin. "You still owe me a hundred favors, though. And there’s no way I’m going to be friends with Malfoy.”

Harry laughed, feeling a sense of calm pour through him, like the world was tilting in the right direction again. He stood up, invigorated, his energy back as quickly as it'd been depleted.

"Dance?" he asked, gesturing to where Luna was doing some strange twisty wave while Ginny laughed and cheered her on.

"What the hell," Ron said, following after him. "Why not."

Harry got home that night to find Malfoy asleep on the couch, his eyes closed, breathing evened out. He stood there a moment, watching Malfoy, thinking about the sudden realization he'd had earlier and the twinge that traveled from his heart to his stomach at the sight of Malfoy. He looked cold, his long form curled on the couch as though he needed his own body heat for warmth. He walked over to grab a blanket from the floor beside the couch and draped it over Malfoy, lingering a second longer.

"Good night," he said finally. Malfoy shifted slightly in his sleep. Harry forced himself to walk away, to stop staring at Malfoy like some kind of creep. When he fell asleep that night, his dreams were bathed with the flash of white-blond hair against the backdrop of a club. It was only with great restraint that he left the Dreamless Sleep where it was, resting on the nightstand beside his bed. 

When Harry woke up the next morning, Malfoy was already awake. There were two plates of steaming breakfast — eggs, bacon, and oatmeal waiting for him.

"What —?” he asked, gaping at Malfoy and looking to the breakfast in a question he wasn't quite sure how to frame.

"You always forget to eat," Malfoy said by way of explanation.

"I — but... did you make this?"

"I do know how to cook, Potter," Malfoy said, sounding incredibly affronted. "But of course, if it isn't to your royal tastes, I can always hire —“

"Sod off," Harry muttered, already digging into the breakfast. He couldn't remember the last time he'd had a meal like this. Probably not since visiting the Granger-Weasley flat, where Ron seemed to have picked up his mother's knack for cooking.

"I assume you mean ‘thank you,’” Malfoy said imperiously. Harry could tell from the way he spoke that he was doing his best to avoid the topic of last evening. 

"I talked to Ron," Harry said, determined to plow through. "And Hermione. And I told them I wasn't choosing between them and you."

"Really?" Malfoy asked. To anyone but Harry he would have seemed completely disinterested, unconcerned with every word, but Harry knew better. He saw the imperceptible way Malfoy leaned towards him, the twitch of his eyebrows and spark in his eye.

"They think you're bad for me," Harry said bluntly.

"What do you think?"

"I think they're wrong," he said immediately, not quite meeting Malfoy's eye. 

"The newspaper agrees with them," Malfoy snorted, pushing the daily edition of the Prophet across the table. Another headline screaming about their relationship — _Draco Malfoy follows Harry Potter into a bar. Coincidence or Danger?_

"For fuck's sake," Harry sighed, letting the words out with a hiss of air and pushing the newspaper back towards Malfoy. "They still think we're together."

"We make a rather convincing couple," Malfoy smirked, and Harry looked away, hating that he could feel a blush already rising under his skin. "What did Ron say about me, anyway?"

"He thinks you kickstarted my anger problems again. And my Dreamless Sleep problems."

"Did I?" Malfoy asked curiously, and Harry wished he would stop asking questions that felt impossible to answer. He craved Dreamless more than anything now, the numbness that took over his limbs and made him feel heavy all around.

"I dunno," Harry muttered. He clenched and unclenched his hands on the table, watching the fingers flex, anything to keep his eyes off Malfoy. It was easier to think when he wasn't looking at anyone. "Maybe."

"Maybe they're right," Malfoy shrugged. Harry could see a sadness in the slope of his eyes, concealed by that layer of indifference.

"They aren't," Harry said. "Maybe you triggered it, but you also help me. I was bound to slip sooner or later anyways. You were just — the straw that broke the camel's back, I guess."

"The straw that broke what?" Malfoy asked, frowning.

"Muggle saying. The point is that I was already on my way there, really. I'd been repressing everything for a long time."

"You tend to do that," Malfoy murmured. 

"Thanks," Harry said sarcastically. "Anyway, I'm not going to stop being friends with you because Ron doesn't completely like you. They're okay with us being friends, I think. They aren't going to try to force me to rethink."

"How kind," Malfoy said with a yawn, like the whole thing was boring him. "You're going to be late if you wait around any longer."

"Shit," Harry cursed, looking down at his watch. "Yeah, yeah, okay. You coming?"

Malfoy hesitated and shrugged. "Okay. I’ve got nothing better to do.”

The day passed in a blur, Malfoy strategically distracting him from the absence of Dreamless, doing his best to focus on tattoo designs instead of emotions. When the day finally ran out, Harry felt strangely content. So he apparated to the Granger-Weasley flat that night, feeling the wards accept him through easily, and it sent a warm curl through his heart. 

"Hey," he called out, and an answering chorus of greetings came floating through the wall. He made his way carefully to the kitchen, careful to avoid stepping on Crookshanks, who ran underneath him as he walked.

"You made it," Hermione said happily. “Ron almost had me roped into another chess game, even though we know who's going to lose."

"I told you I'd play blindfolded!" Ron objected, and Hermione closed her eyes in something that looked like patient tolerance.

"Yes, and we both know you'd still find a way to win."

Ron grinned at Harry, gesturing towards Harry like he couldn't believe his ears. "Do you hear her?" he asked. "Madness. I give her a clear advantage — practically the only time in her life she stands a chance — and this is what she chooses to do with it?"

"I'm going to tell all your chess pieces to bloody kill each other," Harry muttered, collapsing into a chair. 

"Oi!" Ron said, and Hermione just laughed. Harry felt like he was at home, back in times where he could call people friends without having to worry, where it was easy to stave off his anger because there was nothing to call it forth. 

"Thanks for tolerating me," he said suddenly, looking between the two of them. "I've kind of been an arse lately. I was ignoring you because I was too focused on everything else, and you deserve better."

"It's fine," Ron shrugged. "You're busy with Malfoy, I know." He waggled his eyebrows at Harry and poked his foot at a newspaper that read _Boy Genius and Boy Killer — together at last?_

"For fuck's sake," Harry spluttered, swatting Ron over the head with a newspaper while Ron cackled. "We aren't — you know we aren't —“

"Whatever you say, Harry," Ron said in a singsong voice that implied otherwise.

"Let's play exploding snap," Harry said hurriedly, eager to divert the conversation towards more sane grounds, ones that didn't hit quite so close to the truth. He didn't think it was the best time to reveal the possible things he allowed himself to think about Malfoy when there was nobody else around.

"Sure," Ron said with a yawn. "Actually, wait — George invented a new version to exploding snap, he's trying to start a joke game line and he's looking for people to test it out."

"That sounds risky," Harry said, settling himself in. "How is he, by the way?"

"Okay," Ron said with a shrug, his voice suddenly somber. "Lee's helping him with the shop, which is good, I think. But it's hardest on him. You know."

"Yeah."

There was a slight silence, a lull in the world, like everything stopped in respect for Fred.

"They were attached at the hip," Ron said, and he tried to brave a smile, but it came out wrong. "More than. I don't know how he survives it, people accidentally forgetting and asking about his brother, people mixing up names and forgetting which one - well, you know. They did everything together."

"I'm sorry," Harry said. He knew the words meant nothing. He'd heard them a million times himself and rolled his eyes every time, because how could _sorry_ encompass everything he wanted to say that didn't fit into the constraints of language?

Ron smiled sadly at him.

"Exploding snap?" he asked, holding up the cards, and Harry nodded. Hermione sat down beside them and started to deal. 

It wasn't until Harry's cards started swapping themselves around and turning into pictures of pigs, only to look completely normal when he turned them to show Ron, that the mood started to return to normal.

"These are bloody obnoxious!" Harry burst out. "How am I supposed to win when all my cards are pictures of bloody -" He let out another cry of frustration as he tried to show Ron again and the card shifted smoothly.

Ron stifled a laugh and Harry played a card at random, shouting angrily when the tower exploded in a puff of smoke.

"Not my fault you can't read, mate," Ron said, tears of mirth in his eyes. "No wonder you failed History of Magic."

"So did you!" Harry said indignantly, and Hermione looked on with exasperation as he threw a card at Ron.

"Honestly, you two are so childish," she muttered, rolling her eyes.

"Didn't have much time to be a child, Hermione," Harry yelled back, dodging the onslaught of cards that were flying in his direction. "I was locked in a cupboard and then the target of a mass murderer!"

"Harry!" Hermione said, looking appalled, as though she wasn't sure if she should comfort him or scold him. Ron just burst into laughter, leaning back amongst a pile of smoking cards and Harry grinned.

Hermione looked between the two of them with a hopelessness that made Harry grin even further, and she stood up with a shake of her head.

"I'll go get dessert," she said, kicking a card in Harry's direction. "And Ron, you should tell George the cards are brilliant."

"They are not!" Harry roared at her retreating back, tossing a card at her for good measure. "You traitor! All my cards were bloody pigs!“

Ron leaned back against the couch with a content look on his face.

"So," he said finally. "Malfoy? What do you talk about? He seems like the kind of person who would talk about financial stuff all day long. Or maybe just about how he's better than everyone else in the world."

"Shut it," Harry kicked him. "He's not as bad as you say, if you got to know him. He's staying at my flat, actually, because the Manor is filled with dark magic."

"He's staying at your flat?" Ron asked incredulously, casting a glance over at the newspaper. "Are you sure those articles aren't true?" Harry glared at him and Ron laughed again, starting to gather all the cards into a pile.

"I should probably head back soon," Harry said ruefully when he'd finished dessert and the light was dipping below the horizon. "But thank you for having me over and not killing me."

"No worries," Hermione said with a smile. "You can stop by whenever, Harry."

"Just don't bring the ferret," Ron added.

"You can bring Draco whenever you'd like," Hermione said pointedly, sending a glare at Ron, and Harry couldn't help but laugh.

"I'll see you soon, then?" he said, stepping out the door.

"Yeah," Ron grinned. "Have fun with Malfoy tonight, mate! Just don't stay up too late!"

Harry disapparated with the sound of Hermione's scolding ringing in his ears. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finished editing, so now I've just got to post! (I apologize if the relationship stuff is bad because I've actually never been in a relationship and I have no clue why I write this genre)


	40. Chapter 40

When Harry apparated back to his flat, contentment warm throughout his body, he’d expected to find Malfoy asleep. Maybe to find Malfoy lying back on the couch and watching the muggle telly, perhaps reading some aristocratic book.

Whatever he’d expected to find Malfoy doing, it wasn’t to find him pressing another bloke up against the wall, snogging him as though his life depended on it, hands tangled in messy black hair.

“What the fuck?”

It slipped out before Harry could stop it. On second thought, there were a million better options. He could’ve left, could have slept over at Ron and Hermione’s, could have politely alerted Malfoy to his presence. But that wasn’t the way Harry worked. Impulses, gut feelings, words that spoke without his permission — a rather Gryffindor mindset, all things considered.

It was though his words had been a freezing charm instead of a question, because Malfoy went completely still, like he’d been petrified, his whole body tense. He didn’t move from where he was standing — the other man made a noise of confusion, peering around Malfoy’s head to see Harry standing there.

“Draco?” he asked, brows knitting. “What’s going on?”

“Yes, _Draco,”_ Harry mocked, unable to keep the derision out of his voice. “Why don’t you tell us what’s going on?”

“Go,” Draco muttered towards the man, backing away, 

The man took one look at the expression on Harry's face and seemed to decide it was probably best if he listened. He looked between them one last time, muggle shirt unbuttoned at the top, and then he fled the flat, making a beeline for the doorway. Malfoy looked after him longingly as though he wanted nothing more than to follow, and that only set Harry's blood boiling even more than it had been a second ago.

Malfoy stared at him then, defiant, and he crossed his arms tightly across his chest.

"What?" he asked defensively, not quite meeting Harry's eyes.

"What?" Harry snorted. "Really? I let you stay in my flat because your home is filled with dark magic, and in return you bring some random muggle back the second I leave and shag him?"

"I wasn't — we weren't going to do anything!" Malfoy insisted, frowning at Harry. Harry's magic didn't seem to care what Malfoy was saying. The only thing he knew was rage, a crackle that rumbled underneath his skin. He could feel the danger lurking there.

"I don't care," Harry snarled. He wanted the words to be true. Maybe if he thought them enough or spoke them enough or wrote them with long lasting ink, they would finally hold an inkling of truth. Maybe the anger would have dissipated already, because why should he care if Malfoy was snogging a random muggle?

"You obviously do," Malfoy shot back. 

“I care because it's my flat," Harry said under his breath, having to control each word to keep it at a normal volume. "And you're acting like it's yours."

"Sorry," Malfoy said, quietly, and it was a word that seemed to mean so much more coming from Malfoy. The kind of thing he didn't usually say, least of all to Harry. "I can leave now, I'll find somewhere else to stay."

"Why don't you go with your boyfriend?" Harry spat, because the image was still seared onto his eyes, as though he was stuck in a pensieve watching the memory on repeat. Malfoy, pressing him against the wall, head tilted just so, a hand clutching at the nape of his neck and threading through hair. Harry wondered what it would feel like to thread his hands through Malfoy’s hair like that.

"He isn't my boyfriend, Potter."

"I don't care," Harry said again, more vehemently, hating that the words were still so far from the truth. Maybe he had to say them more, more, more. "I really don't care."

"Then stop making such a big deal out of this!" Malfoy burst out. "So I brought someone back to your flat and snogged them! I shouldn't have, it was overstepping and I had no right to do it, and I won't do it again, okay?"

Harry wanted that to be okay, but all he could think about was Malfoy taking people elsewhere, pressing muggles up against alleyways and the walls in a random pub, sitting across from them or buying them coffee or talking to them with that posh accent that set Harry's blood aflame.

All of it was crashing in on him, everything running together, and the anger was spiraling all around him.

"Don't get angry," Malfoy warned, seeming to sense the tension in the air that was more than what it had been before, because now it included magic too.

Harry glared at him. He couldn't help it.  

"Fuck you," he muttered, and then he disapparated. He wasn't sure where he was going until he turned up in the Granger Weasley flat again, didn't understand what was happening until he had a bottle of Dreamless in his hand and Hermione standing in front of him.

"What's —?” She asked, and then appeared to see the Dreamless. "Harry, no. Give that to me."

"I'm too angry," Harry whispered, his voice shaking, his whole body vibrating with the force of an unstoppable fury rushing through him. "If I don't take it, I'm going to end up hurting somebody. I have to."

"No," Hermione said again, and she pulled it from his hand, bright purple and simmering. "Sit down." She pointed towards the couch and Harry gripped his fists tighter, nails digging digging _digging_ , leaving halfmoon marks that looked like claw marks. He stared down at them with a satisfaction, the bright red against his skin.

"Ron!" Hermione called up the stairs. "Harry's here, I might be a few minutes! He's not doing too well."

There was a crashing sound from upstairs and the footsteps pounding towards them. Ron appeared, hair disheveled and eyes tired like he'd been right about to fall asleep.

"Was'rong mate?" Ron asked, letting out a yawn and covering his mouth belatedly. "Did Malfoy do something?"

"No," Harry said immediately. He paused a second, and then - "Yes. No. Maybe. I don't really know."

"You have to talk to us," Hermione said quietly. "We can't read your mind."

"You probably could," Ron pointed out. "You're better at magic than all of us, and Harry was shit at Occlumency, remember that?"

"Ron!" Hermione scolded him, glaring pointedly as though Harry wouldn't see her attempt at silent communication. All in all though, Harry was glad for their bickering. It took the attention off of him, and he could sit back, letting the angry magic flow from the tips of his fingers, filling the room with a charge that he could feel everywhere, like he was swimming in a pool of pure fury. He wondered if it was fueling on their argument.

"He brought someone to my flat," Harry burst out, and sparks jumped around his fingers. Ron and Hermione stopped talking immediately, and Hermione nudged Ron in the side, suddenly listening with rapt attention. 

"Take a deep breath, Harry," Hermione instructed, eyeing the sparks warily. 

"Thanks a lot for that advice," Harry snarled. "I've never heard that before." He felt a flicker of satisfaction as Hermione recoiled and Ron stiffened, glaring at Harry. Nobody insulted his wife. Harry did.

"Harry," Hermione started warily, but Harry couldn't take hearing other people's voices. 

"He was snogging some random muggle in my flat!" Harry yelled at her, and he could feel flames dancing around his fingertips, not wanting to think about why his magic always came out as erroneous bursts of fire. He didn't care about anything at the moment except for that memory that seemed to be seared, branded, into his brain. When he closed his eyes, there it was, waiting for him. 

"Seriously?" Ron asked, taken aback. "Well, now I understand why you're mad. That's scarring, mate."

Hermione was looking at Harry though, in one of those ways that was so distinctive of her. She was almost looking through him, eyes darting around to focus on nothing. Her tongue was trapped thoughtfully between her teeth, breaking free to prod at the corner of her mouth, and then her eyes widened fractionally.

Harry saw the moment she put it all together, and then her focus was razor-sharp on Harry.

"Oh," she gasped, quiet and tiny, looking at Harry in askance. Harry said nothing, and that seemed to be all the confirmation she needed. "Oh, Harry. You haven't said anything, have you?"

Harry stayed silent once more, and she took a seat on the couch beside him, looking sad.

"What am I missing?" Ron asked, looking between the two of them and letting his gaze rest accusingly on Hermione. "What do you know that you aren't telling me?" Hermione ignored him, putting a comforting hand on Harry's shoulder.

"How long?" she asked in a low whisper, and Harry shrugged, shaking his head. Time didn't matter. The only thing that mattered was the impossibility of it all. "Oh, Harry. I knew there was something going on, but I never..." she trailed off and looked down at the couch, back to thinking, her tongue once again poking at her cheek.

"What's going on?" Ron asked again, staring at Harry. Harry didn't answer. He'd deflated completely. It was always like this, a burst of anger followed by an emptiness so complete he thought perhaps all the energy had drained from him, like roadkill drained of blood. 

"You have to tell him," Hermione said quietly.

"No I don't," Harry said firmly. "He doesn't have to know anything at all."

"Harry, he's living in your flat and -"

"I don't care," Harry said firmly. It was that sentence again, the one he hadn't quite been able to make himself believe, the one that seemed to haunt him the second he thought that maybe he'd been successful in making it come true.

"Then what are you going to do?" she asked. Ron seemed to have given up. He sat down on the armchair, curled into a ball with his eyes closed, but that only served to remind Harry of Malfoy. What was he supposed to say? 

"Nothing."

Hermione looked at him helplessly, and Harry shook his head in a warning. He didn't want to deal with this right now. That's why he'd left his flat, why he'd come here, and he didn't want to think about the memory that wouldn't leave.

"Can I sleep here tonight?" Harry asked helplessly, glancing towards the guest room. "I don't want to go back."

"Of course you can," Ron murmured from where he was already half asleep. "I've got no idea what's going on mate, but you know you'll always be welcome here." He didn't even open his eyes when he spoke, just curled up further and let out a sigh.

"Thanks," Harry said quietly, wondering if Ron knew how glad he was that they were on good terms again. It was something he'd never been particularly adept at expressing, especially not know when all his emotions seemed to revolve around a combination of being hidden and turning into an outburst of angry magic.

Harry fell asleep that night, his dreams plagued by memories he'd long-since tried to hide, the last effects of the Dreamless finally having worn off, all the nightmares he'd been drowning rushing back to him inevitably, with crackling fires and close encounters and near-deaths and Malfoy who turned into Voldemort who turned into a dementor. His dreams were a boggart, getting into his brain and finding all the things that scared him most, prodding at the sore spots that he'd spent so long covering and tugging at the pieces of his brain that were starting to unravel, fraying ends that he hadn't protected closely enough.

He awoke in a cold sweat the next morning and went straight to the tattoo shop. He refused to go back to his flat. The last thing he wanted was to see Malfoy, and besides, Malfoy had no reason to come to the shop anymore.

He wondered if maybe Ron had been right, if perhaps Malfoy wasn't good for him after all.

"You okay?" Dean asked when he finally got to Skin Deep and found Harry sitting in the office, knee deep in another spell.

"Fine!" Harry said with all the false cheeriness he could muster, and it sounded horribly forced even to himself, but he plowed on anyway. "I'm working out a new spell that helps to measure your vital signs and reduce pain, so you know when things are serious enough to go to the hospital because of your tattoo but you don't have to be in as much pain."

"That's cool," Dean said absentmindedly, not quite seeming to hear what Harry said. He narrowed his eyes. "Are you sure you're alright? I know things haven't been —“

"I'm fine," Harry said again, taking a deep breath before the words so he wouldn't erupt. "Thanks for asking."

"Okay," Dean said, dubious. Ginny appeared behind him, her hair flashing bright red, and she pressed a kiss to his cheek.

"Hi Harry!" she said cheerfully. 

"Hey Ginny," he said with a smile, glad for the interruption to Dean's questioning. "You look happy." She did look happy — her hair seemed brighter than usual somehow, matching the delight in her smile. She was practically bouncing on her feet, as though she couldn't hold back all the energy inside of her. Harry wished he had that kind of energy, instead of the kind that made him heavy and hurt people.

"We're through to the finals," she said, grinning. "The Harpies are top of the league right now. I'm still a reserve chaser, but they said I might move up next year if I keep playing well."

"That's incredible," Harry said with a smile, and he realized that he was able to appreciate her so much more from a distance. "Congratulations, Ginny. I told you you'd be amazing."

"Thanks. I might come back here to see about a tattoo in an hour or so, if that's okay," she said, and her mood seemed infectious, impossible to resist. "A harpy would be cool."

“Okay,” Harry said. “Let’s do that.”


	41. Chapter 41

 When Harry turned back to his work, his spirits were high. It wasn't until his door creaked open once more that everything came rushing back.

"Have you heard of knocking?" Harry snarled in the direction of the door.

"I thought we'd established that I don't know common courtesy," Malfoy said back, sitting in his chair and pulling up his legs, shoulders shrugged up to his ears like he was trying to hide himself from the world.

"Evidently," Harry sneered. "Why are you here? I'm busy, I don't have time to talk."

"The same reason everyone comes here," Malfoy said simply. "I want a tattoo." His face was even, no inkling that he was joking or messing with Harry for the fun of it, even though he imagined that would be something Malfoy would do.

"Do you?" Harry asked. "Got another Dark Mark you need to cover up?"

"Stop," Malfoy said suddenly, and Harry was glad to see his fists clenched. 

"Stop what?" Harry asked stubbornly, refusing to acknowledge that he'd done anything wrong. As far as he was concerned, he hadn't. 

"You're being a dick for no reason," Malfoy said, still as calm as before, and Harry wanted to break that ridiculous faćade, wanted to shatter the porcelain smooth demeanor of his face, wanted him to fight like he'd been so good at back when they were at school, wanted flying fists or flying spells, inhibitions dropped and fury everywhere.

"No reason?"

"Yes, no reason," Malfoy said, with that same posh voice, so ridiculously calm. "We were getting along fine until that bloke from last night — whose name I don't even know by the way — and I have no idea why you were so offended by him. I apologized to you. What more do you want?"

When Harry looked at Malfoy, all he could see was Malfoy pressing that man up against his wall, snogging him and... Harry didn't want to think about it. He wanted to wipe every second of it from his brain. Why did it have to be Malfoy? Why did it always have to be Malfoy, wading into calm and turning absolutely everything upside down, as though he couldn't help but to cause a wreckage wherever he went. 

"Nothing," Harry muttered, because he had no better answer. 

"Then stop acting like that," Malfoy demanded, and Harry bristled, a million responses jumping into his mind, each more insulting than the last.

_Don't tell me what to do. You can't talk, looking at your past. Leave._

"What tattoo do you want?" Harry asked instead. "I told you, I'm not here to talk to you whenever you desire a conversation. You can go find that guy from last night if you're really so lonely. I, on the other hand, have a job."

Malfoy's jaw clenched. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath — it was the only thing that gave away how worked up he really was, and Harry felt a strange surge of satisfaction that he held enough power to rile Malfoy up like this.

"Have you invented a spell that allows you to see when someone else is alive?" Malfoy asked quietly, and Harry's head jerked up to meet his eyes. They looked quiet. There was no other word for it, downcast and sad, slouched. 

"I can probably figure that out," he said slowly. "Why?"

"I want a tattoo that will tell me if my Mother is alive or not," he said, his voice quiet as his eyes, and Harry felt a shudder passing through him at the thought of Narcissa in her various states of undoing, with silent screams and trials and hospital beds.

"How is she?" Harry asked impulsively.

"I thought you weren't here to talk," Malfoy retorted, but it wasn't a mean retort, no venom in his voice. A statement, that was all, but biting nonetheless. Harry didn't have a response.

"I can do the tattoo, but I'm not sure if it's the best idea," he said finally. "It's only going to make you obsess about it more."

"I don't care," Malfoy said, the same phrase that Harry was so familiar with, the one that often held a million mixed messages inside instead of the one he actually meant. 

"Okay," Harry said. "I can do that." He set down to work while Malfoy sat in his chair, eyes still fierce on Harry while he plucked at threads of magic, intent and burning in the way that Harry had never felt. He knew it was hopeless, trying to resist. He knew for certain now, from the way Malfoy walked into the office, from everything about him. Harry was lost, and there was no longer a way out. It was far too late to escape.

It would have been uncanny with anyone else, creepy even, but Malfoy watching him only served to make him nervous. It made his hands slightly sweaty, made his heart pound a tick into overdrive, made his stomach do loops that made him feel like a normal teenager in a normal school with a normal life, the farthest from what he actually was or had ever been.   

When he finally finished and turned to show Malfoy, Malfoy refused to look away from him. He didn't look at the design. He sat there, something different about his posture, eyes fixed on Harry as though with magic. Like he'd been drawn into the gaze and could no longer move.

"Malfoy?" Harry asked in something less than a whisper, terrified that more would shatter whatever was happening. He realized then what was different. Malfoy's legs weren't drawn up like usual. No, instead they were resting on the floor, one foot jiggling silently, as though nerves had gotten to him. 

Harry had never expected Malfoy to have _nerves_.

"Tell me why you were so angry," Malfoy said. A soft voice shouldn't have been so commanding, but each word dripped with persuasion, the kind so strong that Harry almost had it mistaken for Imperius. 

"What?" Harry said, trying to keep his voice down, his heart pulsing louder than his voice. He'd heard perfectly well, but he couldn't think of anything else to say, his brain completely fried.

"Tell me," Malfoy insisted, gaze still boring into Harry with that intensity that he couldn't let go of. "It wasn't because it was your flat, was it? That's not why you got mad."

Harry couldn't speak. Deep down inside of him, he was capable of speaking the words. He knew what to say, could hear Hermione desperately prompting him, but they were buried so deep down, and Harry's courage was failing him. He wondered why the sorting hat placed him in Gryffindor. 

Maybe he was courageous in the face of danger, but Malfoy stripped it all away like old paint, leaving him raw and terrified and unsteady on his own feet. 

"Why?" Malfoy asked again, not seeming ready to give up his line of questioning any time soon. He stood up. Harry had never realized before how small his office was, the walls sending an aura of claustrophobia, and Harry wondered if he'd accidentally shrunken it in some fit of anger. 

He'd never realized how quiet it was either, because he could hear every ragged breath, and he was no longer certain if they were his or Malfoy's. It could have been either, as though lungs had been shredded and breath came out torn.

"I —“ Harry's voice broke. It was all he could muster as Malfoy stood and took a small step closer. Harry stumbled even though he hadn't been walking, pressed against the desk, the ledge digging into his lower back. He watched Malfoy, the features he'd memorized without realizing, the face he'd seen in a hundred different states and places — behind bars, in a courtroom, in memories and getting tattoos and...

"Why were you so mad at him?” Malfoy asked, and Harry was barely able to take note of the subtle difference in the question. So mad at _him_. Not at Malfoy. 

"I was..." Sentences weren't working. Nothing could function properly in this proximity to Malfoy. He was closer suddenly, close enough that Harry could pick out details he'd never seen before, the curl of his eyelashes, the dip of his eyebrows and the bright stormcloud grey of his eyes. He could see the bow of Malfoy's mouth and the white of his skin, the flutter of his eyelids.

He didn't react when Malfoy's hand came up to his arm, fingers curling hesitantly, softer than Harry had expected but somehow still firm at the same time, still fiercely strong.

Harry wasn't sure if he was still breathing. Breathing felt too risky. Malfoy was so close to him, and neither of them were speaking any longer, the question from before fading into a silence that felt infinitely more significant. 

Harry let his own hand drift up to Malfoy's arm, mirroring him, feeling the cloak beneath his fingertips and wondering if he'd ever been able to feel this completely before, unable to remember a single time in his past when that was true. 

Malfoy was leaning closer when the door burst open with a bang. He jumped back, whirling around to see Ginny standing in the doorway and looking between them with wide eyes. Harry rubbed at his back, which had banged against the desk when he'd jumped in surprise, and he winced at Ginny.

"Er — Ginny," he said in greeting, glancing desperately over at Malfoy, who had a pink layer to his skin and was straightening out his robes, flicking off imaginary pieces of dust in an effort to keep his robe spotless.

"Harry," she said, and there was that hint of warning in her voice, the one that made Harry wince, the one that let him know there was no way for this to end well. He looked over at Malfoy, who appeared to want nothing more than to leave.

"Right," he said, trying to take control and gather himself even when he could still feel Malfoy's breath ghosting warm against his skin. "Erm. Malfoy, if you want to...?" he gestured towards the door. "I can finish helping with that tattoo design later, after... er..."

Malfoy didn't need to be asked twice. He was out of the room in a split second, robes catching slightly on the doorway and snapping out of sight a breath later.

Ginny didn't speak for a long second, and Harry bolstered on bravely, trying to pretend she hadn't walked in on anything out of the ordinary.

"You wanted a tattoo, right?" he asked, desperately hoping she'd understand what he was doing and go along with it to save both of them from the crippling embarrassment. "A harpy. I can definitely try. Dean's a lot better at art, you know that of course, but if he's busy -"

"The papers were right," Ginny said incredulously, staring at Harry like she'd never seen anything like him before. "They were right about you and Malfoy all along. I didn't believe it, you know. I refused to believe it, because there's no way that you of all people would be..." she trailed off and shook her head, an incremental movement so small that it felt like Harry wasn't even deserving of a greater reaction than that.

"We aren't —“ Harry began, but Ginny didn't let him get far.

"Please, don't bother. Save your lies for someone else. I saw you." Harry wanted to fight back, to scream that they hadn't done anything, that Malfoy didn't even _like_ him, but a few moments ago flashed before his eyes and there was really no other explanation for that. Was there? 

"It doesn't matter," Harry said, a variant on the expression he'd been trying to convince himself of for such a long time. Ginny didn't move at all. She stood there, right inside the door, staring at Harry with a disbelieving expression on her face.

"Malfoy?" she asked finally. "It feels like you must have had your memory removed."

"I'm not debating Malfoy," Harry said firmly. "I don't care what you think about him."

Ginny clenched her jaw in that same way that Ron did, a muscle jumping, and it highlighted the other similarities between her and Ron. Signature red hair, confident stance, arms crossed in anger.

"What are you doing?" she asked finally, and Harry took the olive branch with a weight of relief so huge that he let out a sigh. He smiled at her tentatively and showed her the tattoo design he'd been working on, preparing to explain it when she made a frustrated noise in the back of her throat. "Not with your work, you idiot," she remedied. She stared at him further, that same disbelief still evident in her glare. "With Malfoy."

"I told you I'm not discussing it," Harry insisted. "I don't care if you're jealous or..."

"You're fucking _kidding_ me," Ginny said, voice flat, and she shook her head again. It was that patronizing disbelief that got to Harry, that set him off. How did things flip so quickly for him, good then bad then good then bad? In the space of the last few months things had changed so violently that he no longer knew what to do about it.

"What?"

"Jealous?" she asked. "How could you be so selfish? What do you think you're doing, Harry? Do you actually care about Malfoy?"

"Of course I care!" Harry burst out. "How dare you say that?"

"If you care, then what are you doing in a relationship with him?" Ginny asked, and she'd gone from sounding pissed off to desperate in a matter of seconds. Harry didn't bother to correct her, to insist that he and Malfoy weren't together, because he knew that was hopeless.

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm trying to tell you that you should stay away from him," Ginny hissed, her eyes boring into Harry in that same intense way that Malfoy had looked at him, reading his insides with nothing more than a glance. "You should tell him to leave and not talk to you anymore."

"What are you on about?" Harry said, and he could feel sparks jumping already, his emotions boiling over, whistling inside him untended. "Is this some attempt to get me away from Malfoy? Are you talking to Ron, do you think he has me under some kind of love potion too?"

"What happened the last time you were in a relationship?" Ginny asked, ignoring every question Harry threw her way. Harry stopped his rant, mouth dropping open.

"It was with you," he said slowly.

"Right," she hissed, toeing off her shoe and ripping of her sock, stripes in the color of the Harpies. She turned her foot in Harry's direction, but she needn't have, because Harry already knew exactly what he was going to see.

A twisting scar, about five inches long, raised and white and running up the length of her ankle. It looked just as bad as it had when Harry first gave it to her, not faded or healed at all, as bright as it had ever been. Harry flinched away from the sight of it, but Ginny appeared not to care.

"This is what happened," she continued. "You yelled at me. You hurt me. I know you didn't mean to, I know you were out of control, but by all intents and purposes, you abused me."

Harry stared at her. Harry didn't usually cry. He didn't let emotions get the best of him. He was an expert at hiding them away, perhaps not in the healthiest of ways, but hiding them nonetheless. Now, though, now it was hard. 

Right now all he could think of was walking around the lake with Ginny before the war, laughing and doing homework side by side, kissing her in hidden corners and her playing with his hair, seeker's games in the darkness after everyone had gone to bed, and the joy of being able to let go for even the smallest window of time. 

He thought about Ginny, about how he cared, about what he'd done _after_ the war.

"I'm so sorry," he whispered, looking at her helplessly. "Ginny, I'm —“

"Stop," she sighed. "It's long over, anyway. You weren't all terrible, but you also aren't in control of yourself, and it's dangerous to people you care about. I know what happened to Ron. You keep ending up with somebody hurt or damaged.”

"I'm not trying to," Harry said desperately, flashes of his time with Ginny and how happy she'd been before pricking at the back of his eyes. 

"I never said you were. But you and Malfoy? You can still prevent it. You two are so volatile, and I can't honestly imagine a world in which you don't get angry at him. It's so dangerous, Harry."

"I'm being careful," he said in a low voice. "I'm doing my best." He felt like a petulant child at the moment, trying to get out of trouble, looking over at Ginny with sorrow running through him.

"Look, I'm not in charge of you. In fact, I'm not entirely convinced that Malfoy doesn't deserve to be hurt. But if you actually cared about him, you'd stay away from him. That's all I'm saying."

Harry couldn't speak. He was frozen for the second time that day, except this time it wasn't for a good reason. He could only look at Ginny, flashes of her words replaying at random intervals, memories from the time he'd hurt her still running through his mind.

"I'm going to go now," she said quietly. "I can talk to you about the tattoo another time. I think you probably need space to consider what I've said."

Harry nodded dumbly, staring down at the ground.

When he finally came back to his senses and stepped outside into the main area, Malfoy was long gone. Probably back at the flat, Harry thought, no emotion tied to the thought. He felt empty. 

The problem was that Ginny's words were completely true. 

He did care. He didn't want to hurt Malfoy. He couldn't get close, because that would only make his emotions that much more intense, would make the times he got angry that much more dangerous. He couldn't do that to Malfoy, no matter how much he was yearning for the feather-light touch against his arm once more.     

He told Dean he was off for the day with a smile, leaving quickly to escape another interrogation. He briefly considered stopping by Ron and Hermione's, but he didn't particularly want to face Hermione's questions either.

So instead he apparated back to his flat, ignoring all the qualms he had about seeing Malfoy.

"Harry." It was strange to be greeted with his first name instead of his last name, but it hurt that much more when he thought about what Ginny had said, when he reminded himself of the scar on her ankle that would be there forever because of him. He had to do this for Malfoy's sake, he knew.

"Malfoy," he said. Not Draco. Malfoy. He saw the frown that turned down the corner of his mouth temporarily.

"Are you okay?" Malfoy asked, not hesitantly like most people, and Harry shrugged, looking away. Malfoy seemed to take that as a no. "I can order takeout if you want,“ he said, but Harry just shrugged again, sitting down on a chair and facing away from Malfoy.

"I don't care," he said simply. The phrase was now ingrained in his mind.

"Okay," Malfoy said slowly, and he attempted to engage Harry in conversation. "You know, I was thinking about tattoos and the possibilities of magic, and —“

Harry had never realized how much Malfoy talked until he got to know him better, but it never seemed to end, like he was determined to fill every possibly silence with more words.

"I'm tired," Harry cut him off, not wanting to be tempted by his ramblings, hating the pang in his heart at how eager Malfoy's voice had sounded. He hated himself for saying it, hated himself for allowing himself to get even this close, because he should have realized sooner. He had to stop this. He had to cut it off before it began.

"I... okay?" Malfoy said, voice wilting. "Harry, if you're mad at me for earlier..."

"I'm just tired," Harry said even more sharply. He hated the way his name sounded right in Malfoy's mouth, hated even more being reminded of earlier, hated how angry he was getting. This was just further proof that this was a bad idea, that he had to get himself away from Malfoy before things went overboard.

"Okay," Malfoy said, still slow and sounding dubious. "If you're sure."

Harry didn't respond. He walked up the staircase with a heaviness in his heart that weighed down his feet and made his footsteps sound even heavier and more hollow than ever. 

He wondered if he should tell Malfoy to leave and find a different flat before his feelings got the best of him and he acted on something stupid that would only end up terribly for both of them.

He wondered if he would ever feel Malfoy's hand on his skin again, the caress of his fingers. He tried not to wonder about it because it only made him hurt more, and he squeezed his eyes tight against the onslaught of pain that riddled his heart all of a sudden.  

He fell asleep that night slowly. When he did, he was immediately swamped with tendrils of darkness that pulled at him, tugging him, trying to sway him towards the dark side. He was stuck in the middle of a grassy field that sprawled towards a forest on the sides, standing in the middle of a circle of bleachers. Around him the frog choir was singing, their voices raucous and out of tune, growing louder by the second.

He tried to block out their voices. 

"Stop singing," he whispered. Raised his voice slightly more. "Stop singing." It kept echoing around him, voices accompanied by the occasional croak of a frog, all staring down at him when he opened his eyes. "Stop singing!" he burst out in a scream, and he felt magic pulse outwards from him in a wave.

The singing stopped abruptly, and he opened his eyes to find inferi staring down at him, unseeing, in the place of where the choir had been. The frogs were mere skeletons now, blood dotting the bleachers.

"Congratulations," came a high, cold, voice. One he could recognize anywhere, even distorted by dreams. "You have completed the first step in your initiation. Now all you have to do is kill her." 

He held up his hand to reveal a tiny figurine that grew and grew, and suddenly they were standing in the middle of Malfoy Manor, and Voldemort was grabbing the figurine-turned-into-Ginny by the hair, pointing his wand at her neck.

"Kill her," he whispered. She turned into Ron. "Kill him," he said again. With a crack, it became Malfoy, standing helpless beneath Voldemort’s fist. "Kill him."

"I won't!" Harry lurched forward, only to find he was rooted to the ground. "I'm not going to kill him!"

He heard a voice echoing from an upper floor of the Manor. 

"Harry!" it yelled to him, and it almost sounded like Malfoy, except Malfoy was standing in front of him. He shielded his eyes. 

"I'm not going to kill him!" he yelled again as Voldemort pressed his wand tighter against Malfoy's throat, jabbing into the pale flesh. "You can't make me! I won't join you."

"You will, Harry Potter," Voldemort said in that slithering voice. "You're already on your way."

"Harry!" the voice called from upstairs, and all of a sudden Harry's eyes flew open, his limbs thrashing, tangled in the sheets with his heart beating so fast that he was certain he would die. He looked around him — darkness everywhere, what was happening? Where was the voice, where was Voldemort, where was Malfoy?

"I'm not going to," Harry insisted, the vestiges of his dream leaving him.

"Harry, it's me," Malfoy said quietly, and reality came swimming back. A light flicked on beside him. Malfoy was sitting on the edge of the bed with a cool cloth, looking apprehensively down at him. "You were screaming in your sleep."

"Oh," Harry said, his voice breaking. "Sorry. I should have put up silencing charms." Malfoy's expression was indecipherable.

"Are you okay?"

Harry laughed bitterly. "Is anyone?"

"You know what I mean."

"If you're talking about nightmares, it always happens without Dreamless Sleep, and for some reason people keep taking that away from me." He glared at Malfoy with no real feeling behind it.

"Don't be ridiculous," Malfoy said, and it almost looked like he was smiling. "Do you want anything? It's five in the morning anyway, there's not much point in going back to sleep." Harry yawned and rubbed his eyes, trying not to remember yesterday and why he should be considering telling Malfoy to leave his flat, because he didn't want that. He wanted to sit and eat breakfast and laugh when Malfoy used a fork and knife to cut up his toast, because _'Do you have any manners at all, Potter?'_

He wanted to ignore the things he saw in his sleep and the rages that overtook him. He wanted to be normal, to spin back time until yesterday, when Malfoy was standing an inch away with his hand on Harry's arm and his eyes flickering closed.

They sat down at the table together and Malfoy scrambled eggs. It was still strange to see Malfoy in the kitchen, domestic almost, adding to his list of reasons he should leave. He wanted to protect this, to save this moment and keep this person safe.

Malfoy sat down with a yawn, tossing the Prophet aside.

"Still convinced we're together," he said, shooting a look at Harry from the corner of one eye. 

"Hmm," Harry said, swallowing hard and trying to ignore the way his eggs stuck in his throat. "Since when has the Prophet ever printed anything remotely close to the truth?"

“Right,” Malfoy said. He looked downcast, and Harry swallowed again, trying to ignore this. "Right, of course. Shouldn't have expected anything different from the Prohpet.”

From a distance, it might appear that Malfoy was still talking about the Prophet, but Harry got the feeling that it had suddenly become a lot more than that.

"I should go," Harry frowned. "I have a lot of work to do."

"Right, of course," Malfoy said quickly. "Er — is that tattoo still on? I understand if your schedule is full or something, I know Skin Deep has gotten popular lately, but..."

Harry couldn't resist. He could hear Ginny in a corner of his brain, but he wanted this one last thing. He could keep his temper in a professional environment. He could remove himself if he got too angry. He could do this. 

"Of course," he said quickly before Malfoy got the wrong idea. "You can come whenever you want, I'm not working with clients for the whole day, so I'm completely free." He slowed down, not wanting to look too desperate in his haste. "And — er — thank you for breakfast. And for waking me up."

"You're welcome," Malfoy said, manners firmly in place. "It's the least I can do for you. You're giving me a place to live."

Harry gave him a brief smile before heading towards the door.


	42. Chapter 42

It was torture. Pure torture. Harry had never expected to long for the days when verbal sparring matches with Malfoy were the new normal, but now he did with every fiber of his being. He wanted to hate Malfoy and fight with Malfoy and not care about what happened to him. He wanted Malfoy to be a Death Eater, wanted him to be evil, wanted him never to have waltzed back into Harry's life and stolen him away from himself, forced him to rethink everything he'd expected was true. 

He hadn't even known it was a thing to be bisexual before Malfoy. Now it didn't matter, he supposed. Being Harry Potter made dating practically impossible. He shouldn't have expected anything to actually happen with Malfoy, besides. Their history was too long and twisting, their personalities too clashing, Harry too out of control.

Even so, when Malfoy walked through the door with a smirk and gait that felt pureblood with every step, Harry felt his heart skip a beat.       

"I think I have the design figured out," Harry said, straight down to business so that he wouldn't somehow end up in a similar position to yesterday, back pressed against the desk and Malfoy's face so close to his.

"Okay," Malfoy said, fiddling with the edge of his robe like there was something distracting him, but Harry kept talking. 

"It's pretty simple. I'm actually thinking it could be useful for Aurors — a heartbeat charm that shows if your partner is safe, it's quite brilliant actually. There are a few different variations we can do, of course, and it's up to you to decide which one you want to do —“

"I was going to kiss you," Malfoy said, his voice simple. Harry froze mid-sentence, and how did people keep paralyzing him? This wasn't his way. He jumped into action when he saw a threat, he moved when he didn't know what to do. He didn't sit there like he'd been petrified. He didn't look even more lifeless than the stone gargoyles in Hogwarts — at least those had been able to move.

"What?" Harry asked, and it came out far breathier than he'd intended. He cleared his throat, his heart pounding too loud to be embarrassed. He didn't want to miss a word of what Malfoy was saying, but at the same time he was begging Malfoy to stop talking.

"I was going to kiss you," he said blandly. "Yesterday. Before girl-weasel interrupted."

"I — er..." Harry didn't know what to say and he wasn't sure what was expected of him. There were voices in every part of his brain, Hermione telling him to admit his feelings, Ginny telling him to back off, his own voice terrified and begging for help. Never in a million years would he have imagined himself in this situation.

"I thought that might be why you're acting distant," Malfoy continued, and he looked so stoic except for his hand playing with the edge of his robe, a giveaway that Harry recognized easily. 

"No, that's not..." Harry trailed off. "You were going to...?"

Malfoy sighed and gave him a wry smile. "I was probably reading the signs wrong again, I seem to have a knack for that. My apologies."

"No, you —“ Harry broke off. He'd been about to say 'you weren't,' but Ginny's voice was strong. He couldn't do this to Malfoy. It didn't matter how much he wanted it, how much he longed to pull Malfoy close to him and feel his heart beating, to feel skin under his palms and lips beneath his own. 

"I know, you aren't actually into me,” Malfoy frowned, looking down at his hands. "Somehow I convinced myself you might be."

"I can't," Harry said, hating the words that were coming out of his own mouth but knowing he couldn’t lead Malfoy on when this would never happen. "I'm sorry."

Malfoy nodded slowly. Harry wanted to cry, although he rarely did.

"Could you tell me why not?" Malfoy asked finally. "For my own peace of mind."

Harry sighed and looked away, because this conversation seemed to get more and more difficult with every passing second, like the universe was doing its absolute best to torture him. He shook his head, staring down at the heartbeat tattoo, wondering how abnormally fast his own heart was beating right now. 

"It's not going to help anything," he said quietly, not meeting Malfoy's eyes. "Telling you why. It's only going to make things harder."

Malfoy didn't seem ready to give up, and when Harry thought about it, he'd never been one to heed caution either. Almost Gryffindor in the way he followed instincts. He regarded Harry for a second longer and tilted his head to the side.

"I'm only asking because I'm not usually wrong," he said after a moment. "It seemed like..." he hesitated. "You were jealous, when I brought that muggle to your flat. I'm almost sure you were. And you didn't tell me to stop yesterday. You seemed like you were going to go along with it."

Harry stayed silent. Understanding flickered through Malfoy's eyes.

"I'm not wrong, am I?" he asked, searching Harry with a sweeping gaze. "You do like me.”

"Er." It was the only sound Harry could get out, pinned down as he was by Malfoy's gaze and all the words he was speaking. He couldn't admit it. Knowing that they both wanted each other would make things infinitely harder, especially since Harry couldn't let himself give into this. 

He couldn't let this end up like Ginny. The scar flashed before his mind, twisting up her ankle, and it reminded him suddenly of Sectumsempra. He wondered if Malfoy had scars from that, running jaggedly down his chest. He wasn't sure if he wanted to know.

_I can’t be the one to give him more scars._ Harry shook his head, he backed away, he wanted to escape escape _escape_.

“Potter,” Malfoy said, and then more quietly, “Harry. If you don’t want this, I’ll respect that. I can go, if you want. We can forget about the tattoo.”

Harry shut his eyes and tried to remind himself that this second would pass soon, that this moment would be over and whatever he did would be in the past. He tried to remind himself that his future didn't depend on this moment. 

He fought against his every instinct. There was a time for barreling ahead and a time for holding back, a time for urges and for rationality. Now was the time for thinking. "I can't." He shook his head, looking down at the ground. "I don’t fancy you.” 

“You don’t.” It was a statement and a question all at once.

Malfoy had come closer again, and Harry couldn't help but remember before, with Malfoy's hand on his arm and his fingers against Harry's skin, and all of a sudden he had trouble remembering exactly why he was saying no. “No. Sorry. You used to be a Death Eater, and we became friends, but even that was stretching it.“ Harry said it quietly, and he couldn't look up at Malfoy, because he knew that if he did, he'd be a goner faster than lightning. He couldn't let himself give in to this when the words were still echoing through his head, when the scar was still ingrained in his mind. 

He had to hurt Malfoy enough that he would leave.

"Fine," Malfoy said, and he stood up and looked towards the door, suddenly seeming so out of place. "I — I'll just go, then?” He phrased it as a question, but Harry had no idea how to answer, so he just nodded quietly and watched as Malfoy made his way towards the door, black cloak swishing in that way that made Harry want to grab on and pull him back into the room, to pick up where he left off. This was for the best, he reminded himself. 

This couldn't happen. 

He sighed and entrenched himself in the next round of tattoos he had to design, trying to get the image of Malfoy from his mind. He wanted Malfoy to come and go, a split wish that tore him in two directions, something he'd never been good at deciding between, especially when his instincts pulled him in a direction he wasn't supposed to go. He had nothing else to do except visit Hermione. She would understand. Maybe she would have some stroke of genius and figure everything out, maybe she would give Harry the answer and everything would magically be okay. Or maybe she had a book for something like this that she could rifle through excitedly. 

He slumped against the desk, ignoring the magic that swam through the air, exhausted and completely worn out. He loved his job, but at the moment all it did was remind him of Malfoy. That bloody chair, staring at him, mocking him, because why did he have to think of it as Malfoy's chair? It was worse, so much worse, because now Malfoy wanted him as much as he wanted Malfoy. It was all there, within an arm's reach. It would take one word. Maybe less. Maybe he could apparate back home and push Malfoy against the wall and everything would be okay. Maybe this didn't have to be how it was. 

"Hermione?" Harry asked when he appeared in their flat, calling out. There was no response. He made his way into the kitchen and sat down, and finally Hermione came out of a side room to see him sitting there. 

"Harry!" she said, surprised. "I wasn't expecting you." 

"I wasn't expecting to be here either," Harry sighed. "Is Ron home?" 

"He's got an Auror mission at the moment," Hermione said with a sad smile. "I'm glad you're here, actually. It gets rather lonely when he leaves. But it's part of the job, I guess." "

I'm sorry," Harry said, and with a sudden realization he thought that this was Luna all over again. "Am I being an awful friend?" he asked suddenly. "Am I using you just when I need your help?" 

"What?" Hermione asked, confused, pushing a cup of tea over to him. "What do you mean? You came by for game night the other day, and you invited us all out for a pub night. How is that using us, Harry?" 

"No, I know, but..." Harry trailed off with a shrug. "I'm here now, and I'm always here when I need help solving a problem, and I don't want to... you know." 

"Don't worry, Harry," Hermione said quietly, taking a sip of tea. "I'd tell you." 

"Okay," Harry said with a nod. "Yeah. Okay." 

"What's going on?" She took another sip of her tea, closing her eyes and yawning as the steam swirled around her. Harry found that he'd never been more grateful to have her as a friend, and he wondered how he'd gotten so lucky. 

"It's Malfoy," Harry sighed. "He said — well. He fancies me." 

"Really?" Hermione gasped, coughing on a mouthful of tea and losing all semblance of being proper. "He said that? Oh, Harry, but that's — that's wonderful, I guess! Surprising, I have to say, but isn't that good?" 

"Surprising?" Harry said, momentarily distracted. "What's that supposed to mean?" 

"Nothing, nothing!" Hermione said quickly. "Well, you know. You were mortal enemies and he didn't really seem to have emotions, you know." 

"Shove off, Hermione," Harry snickered, taking a gulp of tea while she tried to regain her composure. 

"Well, why are you here then? Did you ask him out?" 

"No," Harry said, feeling oddly strangled. "I didn't do anything like that, actually. I don't think I can be with him. Or anyone at all. I think I have to stay away from people, and really I shouldn't be here either, and I should probably stop working with Dean because seeing customers is a recipe for disaster, of course, and..." 

"Harry, calm down," Hermione said suddenly. "Hold on. Why not?" 

"I'm dangerous," Harry said quietly. "I hurt everybody I get close to." Hermione stared at him for a long second before she seemed to understand, and then she nodded slowly, taking a deep breath and studying Harry. 

"So you think it's better if you isolate yourself from everybody you know. You think that's going to help you." 

"I — are you mocking me?" Harry asked, looking more closely at Hermione. "Somehow that sounded extremely sarcastic, but it's hard to tell." 

"You're being an idiot," Hermione said simply. "You have anger problems, yeah, but that doesn't mean you can never be around people again. If you isolate yourself from everyone you care about, it’s only going to make things worse, and I’m pretty sure you know that. There are solutions, but this is a bad idea, plain and simple. You’re hurting yourself more.”

“Better me than other people,” Harry said quietly, embarrassed to hear his voice breaking slightly towards the end of the sentence. “You saw what happened to Ron. I told you about Ginny. What if — what if I talk to Malfoy and we’re in a relationship or whatever and then we fight? And I get angry, and I hurt him like I did in sixth year. Or what if it’s worse than that, and I kill him? I’m out of control and I don’t know how to stop myself before I do something seriously bad.”

Hermione chewed on her lip. “What have you tried so far?”

“What?”

“I mean, in the way of helping your problems?”

“Well, I saw that Mind Healer, you remember, but that was shit.” He racked his brains, trying to come up with other things he’d done, but turned up empty. “I don’t know what else to try.”

“You’ve stopped trying,” Hermione said softly. “You dull your emotions with Dreamless Sleep and you cover them all up with anger. You never get to the root of the problem. I went along with it, you know? I would ask what you needed instead of what you felt, but there comes a point when you have to talk about it. Doesn’t have to be with me. But you can’t keep holding it all inside.”

Harry sighed and looked at the ground again, shaking his head. “I don’t think I can do that to Malfoy.”

“Harry —”

“No, Hermione,” Harry said, standing up. Ginny’s words were too loud in his brain, the truth of them too sharp. He knew Hermione was trying to help, but she didn’t fully understand the monster inside of him.

“Listen for a moment —”

“I said no!” Harry yelled, whirling on her with rage crackling around him. “I’m going.” He ran towards the door, not sure why he was running, only knowing that with every step there was a spark of magic, singing footsteps into the floor. He was outside before he knew it, apparating before he understood, standing in the flat a moment later.

“Potter?”

Malfoy was standing in the middle of the living room, his bag slung over his shoulder. Harry barely saw him. He was wild with rage, angry with himself and the circumstances and absolutely everything else around him. He wanted to curse the whole world. He wanted to vanish. He wanted everything else to vanish. He heard something cracking, but he didn’t know what.

“Sit down!” The voice broke through his anger, commanding and sharp and equally angry. “Sit down right this second, Potter.”

Harry didn’t have the energy to listen, to put himself back together, so he resorted to fighting. 

“Don’t you fucking tell me what to do, you Death Eater!”

He thought that would make Malfoy freeze up, maybe that it would make him punch Harry or curse Harry or storm out of the flat. Malfoy did none of that.

“Potter, you are a _coward._ Sit down.” His voice was eerily calm, and he was standing in front of Harry, glaring with a force that made Harry pause a second, the anger crackling to a halt. Malfoy stared at him, not backing down, not yelling back, not cowering. Staring. Like he was disappointed in Harry.

Harry collapsed to the couch dazed, not sure what to do with the pent up aggression that was lingering.

“Now breathe and channel all your energy into calming down,” Malfoy said, and Harry couldn’t understand his tone. “If you yell at me one more time, there’s going to be a problem. I’m going to go make tea. Stay there, Potter.”

Harry stared down at his fists, the half-moons on his palms so bright that it looked as though they could have drawn blood if his nails weren’t bitten to the quick.

He tried to do what Malfoy had said, tried to turn his anger inwards and pit it against itself, fight against his defense mechanism that came up so quickly. He took a breath, let it out, tried to count things around the room like his Mind Healer had instructed, even though he’d dismissed her instructions with a laugh. There was a shattered vase on the floor — that’s what the cracking had been, he figured, and he tried to count the pieces, doing his best to get his breathing under control, clenching and unclenching his fists.

Malfoy returned with a cup of tea, passing it wordlessly over to Harry.

“Thanks,” Harry said gruffly. “Sorry I yelled.” But Malfoy didn’t look angry. Instead he was giving Harry a tiny smile that looked almost warm.

“You did it,” he said simply.

“What?”

“You said you could never control yourself, but you did. Just now.” He took a sip of his own tea, and Harry looked back at him wide-eyed. 

“Barely. And I broke that vase, I’d hardly call that control.” He wasn’t feeling in control now, especially not with Malfoy sitting so close and smiling at him like that, _praising_ him. He felt like he would lean over any second and kiss Malfoy and tell him that it had been a lie before, that he wanted nothing more than  Malfoy, that at the moment he would do anything for that.

He looked at Malfoy for a long moment, wishing he had the courage. Wondering where his Gryffindor was. Wondering why he couldn’t get rid of the memories of scars flooding his mind.

He continued before Malfoy could get a word in edgewise.

“And about earlier — forget about it. You can stay here, I don’t mind. Stay on the couch. You don’t have anywhere else to go.”

He smiled sadly at Malfoy and stood up, turning in for bed early, wanting nothing more than to stay.


	43. Chapter 43

Harry should have known that Malfoy would never disappear from his life. He'd expected to at least have a brief respite when he went back to Skin Deep the next day, settling down with a whole new host of designs, but sure enough. It was only two hours before there was a knock at his door, the sharp rap of knuckles that Harry recognized instantly.

He hated that he recognized Malfoy's knock.

"What do you want?" he asked gruffly, and Malfoy came through the door, frowning. There was a flash of red hair behind him, vanishing quickly enough that Harry thought he must have imagined it. The second he tried to get a closer look, it had vanished.

"Before I tell you why I'm here..." Malfoy trailed off and settled into his armchair. It eased something in Harry's heart, to see him back in his place. It felt like he belonged there. "It was because of Ginny, wasn't it?"

"What?" Harry asked, thrown off, thoughts of Ginny spiraling along with the fact that he shouldn't even be talking to Malfoy. Scars, scars, scars. He was going to end up hurting the one person he'd truly come to care about, almost above everyone else.

"You lied, yesterday."

Harry wasn't sure how to answer that. His throat felt strangely closed off, like the airway had been blocked. He stared at Malfoy.

"I knew you were lying - there are a million dead giveaways, Potter, you're really hopeless. It's no wonder you didn't make it with the Aurors." Harry bristled, but Malfoy rolled his eyes and kept talking. "Not an insult, just a fact."

"I didn't lie!" Harry insisted, and Malfoy snorted, eyes roving over Harry's face.

"You didn't? You're doing it again now." Harry glared at him, the smug expression on his face, like he was a professional at making deductions. Malfoy shook his head and sighed, curling further into himself. "Whatever, Potter. The point is, I know you were lying."

"Why didn't you say anything?" Harry asked desperately, although it fit. The things he'd said, about Malfoy being a Death Eater, about how he would never like someone like that — usually Malfoy wouldn't just let that go. He would fight back, get angry, tell Harry he was being stupid. It wasn't like him to look calmly on and silently agree.

"Do you think that would have gone well?" Malfoy asked. He looked at Harry. 

"No," Harry admitted. "I probably would have gotten mad."

"Precisely," Malfoy shrugged. "I've been trying to figure out why you lied, because it doesn't make sense. One minute you seemed perfectly willing, the next minute I'm being thrown out of the room. The next time you see me, it's as though you never liked me all. I couldn't seem to make heads or tails of it, but I think I understand. It was girl-weasel, wasn't it?"

"Why do you think that?" Harry asked, avoiding answering the question. If Malfoy could really tell when he was lying, there was no use pretending. 

"I was walking over here and when I passed her, she ever so kindly told me to 'stay away from Harry.’ Then of course, she proceeded to threaten me with a variety of things that don't concern me in the slightest. And that's when I remembered the one thing that happened between the shop and later at your flat. You talked to her."

Harry shrugged and looked away, and Malfoy pressed his lips tightly together. 

"She made me aware of something I should have realized earlier," he said, and he didn't want to be talking about this right now. He wanted Malfoy to be somewhere else, and he wanted to keep working on tattoos, and he wanted it to be him and Dean and peace.

"What was it?"

Harry shrugged. He still didn't look at Malfoy. He didn't want to be convinced.

"Why won't you tell me?" Malfoy asked, and it was his voice more than anything that broke Harry. "I'm not going to do anything you don't want. I merely want to know why you lied. What did she say?"

“She reminded me of why we broke up,” Harry said calmly, giving in. 

“And why was that?”

“I hurt her,” Harry said simply. “I was angry all the time, which was bad enough, but one day things went too far. My magic got away from me.” He hesitated and looked down at the ground. “She still has the scar.” He didn’t want to look back at Malfoy. Malfoy knew he was a monster, but this was something else entirely, an extent to his madness that he wasn’t sure he ever wanted to reveal.

“Seriously?” Malfoy asked. There was a pause, and then Harry heard the squeaking of the armchair, footsteps moving towards the door, the creak of hinges, and his heart dropped. Malfoy was leaving. Of course he was leaving — why would he stay after what Harry had told him? Harry shouldn’t have expected anything more.

Until he heard voices.

“Weasley.” It was sharp, a bark, from right outside his office.

“Malfoy.” The way she said it was less than polite, as though he was a nuisance, something to be dealt with and swatted out of the way. Condescending, almost, the kind of tone you used with a particularly energetic child.                                           

“Leave Harry alone.” He sounded angry, but Harry was at a loss. He wished he could see Malfoy’s face — maybe it would help him understand — but he couldn’t, and now all he had to go on was tone.

“You’re telling _me_ to leave him alone?” Ginny asked incredulously. “How about _you_ leave him alone?”

“You have to stay out of things that are none of your business,” Malfoy said calmly, but his voice quavered and held a touch of anger, so intimately familiar to Harry that he recognized it instantly.

“He used to be my boyfriend. It’s my business because of what he did, accidental or not. I’m trying to help you Malfoy, as surprising as that might sound. I’m not working against you.”

“I can make my own decisions,” Malfoy spat. “I can choose my own risks. It doesn’t matter if you and Harry used to be together, because you aren’t anymore, and his relationships are none of your business. Do you understand me? If Harry decides not to date because he’s worried about hurting someone, that’s _his_ decision.”

“I was helping him to understand the risks,” Ginny hissed. 

“And now he understands,” Malfoy shot back. “So stay out of it.”

“Fine,” Ginny said, and Harry could almost picture her shaking her head. “I’ll stay out of it. You two deserve each other.”

There was the sound of heavy footsteps again. The door clicked open and Malfoy walked through, rolling his eyes in Harry’s direction. He sat back down on the armchair like nothing had ever happened and then looked up at Harry with a smile that barely showed, a small curl at the corners of his mouth. 

Harry’s mind was running wild. He didn’t know how to think anymore. He didn’t know what to do. Was he supposed to talk? Supposed to say something to Malfoy? There wasn’t common courtesy for this kind of thing, and Harry was at a complete loss.

There was a moment of silence while Malfoy shifted, settling into the chair, and then he started talking as though the past few minutes had never happened.

“So I’ve been thinking about your anger problems,” Malfoy said slowly. “And coincidentally, I was also considering a new tattoo design, and somehow wondered if there was a way to combine the two. Do you think you could design a tattoo that would show you when you started getting angry so you could calm down before it got out of hand? Some kind of signal to alert you. I don’t know.” Malfoy shrugged, peering curiously at Harry, and Harry couldn’t restrain himself for a second longer, and he didn’t _want_ to restrain himself for another second.

He pushed away from where he'd been leaning against the desk and he was standing in front of Malfoy in less than a second — or perhaps time had skipped and he didn't realize. All he knew was that he was leaning down and kissing Malfoy, because his restraint had broken and he couldn't remember why he'd decided this was a bad idea, because it was everything. It was _everything_. 

It was the feeling of being so close to another person that he cared about more than anything. It wasn't like kissing Ginny. No, instead of desperate, wondering if they'd be alive the next day, if the war would be upon them or Harry's emotions would spiral, it was soft. Gentle, hesitant, nothing like Harry would have imagined. 

Malfoy was frozen for a solid second as though he couldn't quite process what was happening, and Harry didn't blame him, because he was having trouble processing it too. And then Malfoy kissed him back. Just as hesitant, like it might break any second. When Harry finally pulled back, Malfoy was looking at him with his eyes wide. 

"You..." 

"I'm sorry," Harry murmured, backing away. "I shouldn't have taken you by surprise." 

"Shut up, Potter," Malfoy muttered, wrapping his arms around his legs. He looked away, breath still coming harder although he tried to hide it, face still pink that was impossible to hide. “What was that?”

“What?” Harry frowned.

"What did that mean?" Malfoy asked, as though they were at the Auror office trying to decode some kind of ancient script. Like it was business. Harry stared at him for a long second, trying to decipher whatever that was in his gaze. 

"What - er, well, I like you," Harry frowned. "I thought you knew that." 

"Yes, yes, I understand Potter," Malfoy said impatiently, as though Harry was being an idiot on purpose. "But you also said you weren't going to do anything because you were afraid of hurting me. I have to know if you changed your mind or if that was just on impulse. If you haven't changed your mind, then I'd prefer you keep a certain distance between us." 

"Oh," Harry whispered. For that moment he'd completely forgotten about everything else, acting on instincts instead of thinking it through, going about it in a way that was wholly Gryffindor. "I...er...I don't know." 

"Right," Malfoy said, standing up briskly. "Think it over, then." 

"No, Malfoy, wait!" Harry called as he started to walk towards the door. "I want to. But I'm scared that I'm going to get out of control again. I think I want to try your idea with the tattoo." 

Malfoy paused and looked back over his shoulder. "Okay?" It was a question, as though to say ‘And? why would this matter to me?' 

"And I can give you the heartbeat tattoo if you want," he said. "I've figured out a way to connect it with your mother. A kind of bond that will show if she's alive. It's a simple design, really, it'll change color when she dies and that's all. I can also make the tattoo disappear when she dies if that's what you'd prefer. And — er — how is she, by the way?" 

"She's okay," Malfoy shrugged. "Better than before. She said my name yesterday, which she hasn't done before, so I guess it's a start." 

"If you ever want someone to come with you when you visit, you can always call me," Harry said. He was acting too much on instinct, recently. Saying things, doing things. He had to be careful, to restrain himself from kissing Malfoy again, to put all the possibilities on hold while he figured everything out. 

"Is the only reason you don't want to date me because you're scared your magic is going to get out of hand?" Malfoy asked, and Harry shook his head slowly. There was another reason, deeper down. 

"You remember what happened when it first got out that we were 'dating?' And that was unconfirmed. They sent you to Azkaban and you could've spent the rest of your life there. People think you're drugging me, and I don't think they're very keen to give up on that idea, for whatever strange reasons." 

"For my safety, again," Malfoy said evenly. Harry shrugged. Nodded. "I can take care of my own safety, Potter," said, sounding almost insulted as he said the words, like Harry was keeping him sheltered from the world, some overbearing parent. "I don't need you to help me." 

"But I'm worried about you, and there are enough people wanting to cause you harm without me accidentally jumping in and making everything easier. It would be a nightmare, really. Everyone would be in an uproar. I don't blame them, actually," Harry laughed incredulously. "I don't quite believe we're having this conversation." 

"Let me get this right," Malfoy said slowly. "You're going to let everyone else dictate what you do?”

"No, that's not —“ 

"Potter, I can make my own decisions. You can get better at handling your emotions and trying not to use Dreamless Sleep when you can help it. We can do this. And yeah, it'll be really messy, and it might go down in flames, but we can try. Only if you want. I'm not going to push you anymore. The snitch is on your side of the field now, Potter." 

"Even if it wasn't, I'd still catch it first," Harry said, unable to resist, and Malfoy rolled his eyes in a manner that somehow still made him look esteemed. Stately. 

"You wish." 

"Tattoo, then?" Harry asked. He couldn't answer Malfoy yet. He knew what he wanted, but he needed time to think about it, to mull everything over in his head and get himself sorted out. If he agreed to this, it could turn a lot of things upside down, starting with Ginny's goodwill towards him. He wasn't sure if he was ready to be in a relationship yet, especially not one destined to be as complicated as with Draco Malfoy. 

"Sure," Malfoy said with another offhand shrug. "Er...I know this is a strange time to ask, but is there still a spot open? Only that earlier you said there might be a job opportunity, and ever since the Malfoy fortune has been frozen, it's made things slightly more difficult. It's perfectly fine if not, I'm sure I can find another job, but it tends to be more difficult for Death Eaters believe it or not.” 

"I'll talk to Dean," Harry said with a smile. "I'm sure he'd be glad to have you, two people isn't really enough people to run a shop like this." 

"Okay," Malfoy said, running a hand through his hair and hesitating in the doorway like he didn't know if he should come in, even though he'd never had qualms about being in Harry's office before. 

"Why are you still standing there?" Harry asked, eyebrows creasing. 

"I thought we were going to go do tattoos," Malfoy shrugged. “Are we going?”

"Oh, yeah, right," Harry said, flustered and not put together completely, still dazed from the memory of a few moments earlier. "Er, I'll be there in a minute, I just need to finalize a few things here. Dean's probably in the tattoo room now, but it might be empty. Either way, go ahead and wait..." He waved on ahead, and the second Malfoy left the room he slumped against the wall, staring helplessly around him.

Harry had no idea what to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> !!!!!!


	44. Chapter 44

His mind was in overdrive. Usually in the past, this is when he would be thankful for the pull of Dreamless Sleep to make everything easier.

Usually he would sink into his chair and close his eyes and pretend the world didn’t exist — perhaps if he was particularly overwhelmed, he would think about Umbridge and Rita Skeeter and Dudley and the lists of people that made his insides boil and let everyone else slip away. But he couldn’t, because he was trying to stop that.

It all came back to Malfoy.

No matter what he did, no matter that he wanted to ignore it, his insides were still spinning with an incredible force. Hot and heavy inside of him, as confused as he was, like his organs had entirely forgotten their function. Harry tried to breathe and think through this even when he could barely see straight, when the only thing he could feel was his lips pressed against Malfoy’s. 

He had a choice now — one that shouldn’t be as difficult as it felt. It wasn’t like choosing to ask out Cho Chang back at Hogwarts. No, this felt infinitely more significant because _Malfoy_ was infinitely more significant. It was the kind of pull that Harry would never be able to explain. The kind of need that made him always want to be around Malfoy — his snark, the unexpected, something about his presence that made Harry feel like he was more important than anything else that had happened in recent times. 

And this decision was a turning point. This was something that could end in complete disaster, the two of them, with Harry’s problems and their past and the unpredictable hanging in the balance.

_Fuck it,_ Harry thought to himself. He was a Gryffindor. He didn’t need to spend hours deliberating over this decision, especially when it would only make him more uncertain the longer he spent. He stood up, tracing Malfoy’s steps out the door and to the tattoo room. He found Malfoy waiting on the bench, staring down at the Narcissus flowers with an indecipherable expression crowning his face.

“Do you want me to do yours first?” Harry asked quietly, and Malfoy didn’t startle at his voice. He barely lifted his head.

“Whatever’s easiest,” he said, calm and unmoving. 

"Okay," Harry said, and he pulled out his wand. He wasn't as good as Dean was, but he knew the charms well enough to pull it off, especially with a simple design like this one. "This might hurt a little." 

"I know Potter," Malfoy said with a smirk. "I've already gotten a tattoo, or don't you remember?" He gestured at his arm, and Harry wasn't sure whether he was referring to the flowers or the Dark Mark, but he didn't ask. 

"Right," he said. "Fine, give me your arm, or wherever you want it." Malfoy held out his right arm, palm upturned, and he pointed to a spot on his wrist. Right where you could feel the pulse, as though he wanted his pulse directly connected to his mother's, the lifeblood of their two bodies making them one. 

"There?" Harry said, his own hand replacing Malfoy's, brushing over the skin on his wrist. There was no way to make this seem clinical or make it look like it was just a tattoo, because the moments past were hanging too heavily between them, the possibilities, the meanings such a simple touch could have in a different context. Harry tried to ignore it. 

"Yes," Malfoy said, and he whispered it. Too much effort to muster more, or perhaps the space was too small to speak aloud. Harry was starting to feel that way, enclosed in this room with Malfoy in front of him. Harry murmured the spell under his breath, a tracing charm that showed what it would look like when it became permanent. He looked down at it, the fragile outline of a heart against Malfoy's skin. 

He hated how easily these things brought him back to the screams and torture of war, the way things were torn apart and hearts stopped so easily, lke they were nothing more than a fragile vase meant to be broken. Sure, it was sad, but in the grand scheme of things a death felt like nothing more than a word. 

"Perfect," Malfoy said quietly, and Harry wound the other charms into it, until it pulsed with a soft red color. Malfoy stared at it for a second, not wincing at the pain, and then he turned to smile at Harry. Harry's finger was still brushing his wrist, a touch that made him question why his fingers were so strangely sensitive.

“Okay,” Harry said, and then turned his wand on his own wrist, drawing a long line around his wrist, a bracelet of ink, breath catching at the sting as the ink settled into his skin. It was easy enough — a charm similar to Malfoy’s, measuring his pulse. A similar color charm, glowing red and getting brighter as his anger rose.

He looked up at Malfoy. Malfoy smiled. Harry broke.

“I want to try,” he said, studying Malfoy’s face. “Er — see. If it could work between us.”

Malfoy drew in a sharp breath. His eyes slowly raised, from the line around Harry’s wrist to the heart on his own, flickering up to Harry’s eyes. He was close enough that Harry could see the startling grey. It reminded him of a thunderstorm, and he couldn’t think of something that fit Malfoy more than that.

“Are you sure?” Malfoy asked carefully, as though he didn’t want to risk anything unless he had a guarantee, and hearing Malfoy’s voice was enough to make his decision.

“I’m sure,” Harry said. He took a deep breath, looking down at his feet, wondering why he felt so clumsy even after he’d easily passed his Auror entrance exams. He looked back up at Malfoy, his field of vision limiting to Malfoy’s face, eyes wide. “Er — would you want to get coffee with me? After I finish?”

“As a date?” Malfoy clarified, his voice less steady than usual — Harry still wasn’t used to Malfoy losing his composure, and apparently Malfoy wasn’t either, because he straightened up immediately and took on a more confident tone, like he had to convince Harry he was completely fine with that. “Sure, Potter. Not that we haven’t done that before. Not the most inventive first date idea, but I wouldn’t have expected anything else, coming from you.”

“Shut up,” Harry grinned, rubbing a finger over the band of ink on his wrist. “Just say yes and stop talking.”

“Yes,” Malfoy huffed, looking disgruntled, and Harry couldn’t hold back his smile, even in the face of Malfoy’s indignation. His mouth worked for a second, and then he spoke, seemingly unable to hold back. “And don’t tell me what to do. I don’t care if you’re dating me.”

“Of course not,” Harry laughed. “It’s not like you’d listen anyway. I wouldn’t expect any less.”

Malfoy went to visit his mother at the hospital a few minutes later while Harry finished his shift, and they agreed to meet up later for coffee across the street.

“Dean?” Harry asked, knocking on the door to his office with a stack of files in his hand. Dean was hunched over his desk, music emanating softly from his wand, pencil scratching away like always.

“Yeah?” he said absentmindedly, grabbing at his eraser — it took him a few tries to get it. Harry stepped into the room and shut the door behind him, sliding the papers over to Dean and leaning against the wall to wait until he was ready. 

“Are you busy, or do you have a minute?”

“Next appointment’s in an hour,” Dean yawned, squeezing his eyes shut and stretching with a small noise of satisfaction. He tossed his pencil to the back of his desk and turned to face Harry, yawning one more time and rubbing his eyes. “What d’you need?”

“You remember when we were discussing opening another position?” Harry asked, crossing one leg over the other and staring down at his foot to give himself a place to focus on. “Someone to help organize everything, take care of new clients, that kind of thing. You and I are getting more busy.”

“Do you have someone in mind?” Dean asked, blinking in that tired way of his. 

“Malfoy,” Harry said, cutting right to the chase. “Whatever negative things you might say about him, he’s a good worker.”

“For talking to people?” Dean asked skeptically. “There are a lot of people who aren’t particularly fond of him. It might turn customers away, cause problems.”

Harry shrugged. “It’ll root people out, then. Malfoy’s definitely qualified for the job, and if things go badly after the first week or so, you can throw him out. It’s your decision, of course, just a recommendation.”

“Not biased, right?” Dean asked, a smile tilting his face and crinkling his eyes.

“What?” Harry asked, momentarily thrown off.

“Ginny told me you two were involved. She said she walked in on you in a compromising position.”

“Er — yes, right,” Harry said, scratching at the back of his neck awkwardly. “Right.” He would’ve corrected Dean — it was his instinct to argue, but technically they were dating. Trying at least, whatever that meant for the two of them.

“Hmm,” Dean said, sounding politely amused. “You don’t see any bias or risk with giving your boyfriend a job?”

“I —” Harry started, but Dean cut him off with a laugh.

“Whatever, Harry. We can give him a two week trial period, but no favoring him because of your personal relationship, okay?”

“Deal,” Harry said with a grin, and Dean rolled his eyes in response, taking the files and settling back into work, flipping slowly through them and studying Harry’s new spells.

Harry was fidgeting throughout the rest of his time at work. He had a tempus cast next to him, on and off, because he couldn't resist checking it every so often. It was as though he thought time was going to suddenly run away from him without him realizing, and one fleeting instant was all it would take before he was late. He was jittery too — all his spells were going awry and the magic wasn't cooperating, as it did when his mind wasn't fully on the task. 

But how could his mind be fully on the task when he was supposed to go on a date with Malfoy later? It shouldn't be any different than usual, he tried to convince himself.

They'd gotten coffee together before. If everything went according to plan, their conversations wouldn't be stilted or awkward, not like Neville constantly complained about with his dates —most of them of which Luna had set up, so there hadn't really been much hope in the first place. 

He knew Malfoy, he reminded himself. He could act like himself. He didn't have to put on some guise of being a hero - or rather, the opposite, making sure people knew he wasn’t a hero. Malfoy didn't care about any of that. Harry didn't have to act, even less than he did around Ron and Hermione, who he sometimes felt himself slipping into the Boy Who Lived around. He wasn't sure why, but something about how he'd always been the hero when he was with them at Hogwarts made him feel strangely obligated to continue being the hero. 

Finally, Harry couldn't take it a second longer. He made his way to the coffee shop, trying not to tap his fingers against his leg, willing his heart to stop beating so fast and wondering why he was so scared. 

He'd used to think he was relatively fearless. Facing Voldemort hadn't been pleasant. He'd been scared, certainly, but not to the same degree as innocuous situations like this that took more out of him than anything else. He took a seat at the table and waited. 

Malfoy came in two minutes later, still far earlier than they'd planned. He walked in looking completely unruffled. Pristine, put-together, the way Malfoy always liked to appear to the world. Maybe it was something about his past, about showing he was still an esteemed member of society despite what had happened. Or maybe it was a product of his upbringing, unable to dispel the thing he'd learned from a young age. 

Either way, the only thing that gave away any kind nerves was his fingers — long, pale, playing with the hem of a stately robe. 

"Potter," he said, sitting down, and his voice didn't waver. 

"Malfoy," Harry grinned, trying to remember how to interact with people and ignore his twisting heart. It was ridiculous, all of this. He felt like he was a teenager again, trying to ask bloody Cho Chang out on a date and getting the words out all wrong. He was an adult now. This should be nothing. Nobody else got this worked up and socially inept over a coffee date. 

"You're early," Malfoy smirked, leaning back in his chair, and Harry fixed him with a glare, resisting the urge to roll his eyes and resisting the stronger urge to smile fondly. 

"So are you," he pointed out. "Hypocrite." 

"I got out of the hospital more quickly than first anticipated, and I didn't have anywhere else to go," Malfoy shrugged. "You don't have an excuse." 

"I don't need one," Harry retorted, and he leaned back in his own chair, mirroring Malfoy's posture and feeling the familiar banter run over him in a wave of relaxation, unknotting his stomach. This was easy. This was the same as always, talking to Malfoy, dating Malfoy. There wasn't much difference, in the end. 

"How was your mother, by the way?" Harry asked, realizing what Malfoy had said. "Is she getting any better?" 

Malfoy shrugged. "She wasn't the best when I went to visit her. The nurse said she can still see the memories all the time, every second she's awake and sometimes when she's asleep too. The difference is that now she can also see past them and recognize that they're memories. It dulls the madness a little, but it's still no way to live." 

Harry nodded, sighing. "I wish I could help." 

"Me too," Malfoy said with a wry smile, as though feigning happiness would offset the pain. "Great topic for a first date, Potter, my insane mother." 

Harry backtracked quickly, eyes wide. "Er - I'm sorry, I didn't -" Malfoy snorted, reaching out to put his hand over Harry's, and Harry stilled, the warmth radiating through him unexpectedly. Harry would have thought Malfoy's hands would be cold. They looked it, pale as ice, but instead they were pleasant and strangely soft, different than Harry's own callused hands. 

"Shut up," Malfoy said quietly. "I was joking. Talk about whatever you want." 

Harry relaxed slightly, shoulders dropping and relief flooding him. He turned his hand over slightly, letting Malfoy's fingers interlock with his own for a moment, staring at the contrast between the two and marveling with the fact that he was holding Malfoy's hand. 

It had been so long since Ginny. So long since he'd been close to anyone. So long since there'd been a person that knew as much about him as Malfoy did. 

"Let's talk about Voldemort, then," Harry said sarcastically, and Malfoy merely laughed. 

The waitress interrupted them, looking down at their clasped hands and granting them a small smile. It made Harry feel warm inside, as though he wasn't alone in the universe, thought to be under some kind of spell by the whole of society. "What can I get you today?" she asked politely, and Harry ordered a hot chocolate while Malfoy ordered earl grey. She smiled at them once more, and Malfoy let go of Harry's hand, putting it in his lap instead. 

"Is the tattoo working?" Malfoy asked, gesturing to Harry's wrist where the band was still wrapped around, one with the skin, a circle of black with not even the slightest hint of red to taint it with anger. 

"Not sure," Harry said. "I haven't really had a chance to test it yet. Maybe later you can try to make me angry and we'll see if it works." He said it sarcastically, even though he knew Malfoy would probably delight in that idea. To no surprise of Harry's, that's exactly what Malfoy seemed to think 

"That sounds brilliant," Malfoy grinned, catching Harry's eye, and Harry resisted the urge to slap him. 

"That reminds me!" Harry said suddenly, remembering the conversation he'd had with Dean earlier. "There's a position open for you at Skin Deep. You can start tomorrow if you want, for a trial period of two weeks. Dean's going to assess you, because I'm not exactly... impartial." 

"Really?" Malfoy asked curiously. "What will my job be, then?" 

"For the most part, scheduling our appointments, greeting customers, simple tasks like that. You can always help me with magical development if that's something you want to get into. New ideas that we can advertise, different approaches to spells. That kind of thing. I'm the only one working on it at the moment." 

"Oh, then you desperately need help," Malfoy said, and Harry couldn't decide whether to frown at Malfoy or laugh. It was so refreshing, to have somebody that could joke without worrying that Harry would be insulted. 

"Not sure you're the best help," Harry retorted, leaning back and crossing his arms as the waitress came back, carrying two mugs and placing them down on the table in front of Harry and Malfoy with a tiny bow. 

"Shut up, Potter." 

"Do you think maybe it's time to call me Harry? Seeing as we're on a date?" The word still felt strange in his mouth, especially with present company. Date. It wasn't something he ever expected to do again. With Ginny, they'd been occupied with work most of the time - between her schedule with the Harpies, tournaments that lasted days and practices at odd hours of the morning and evening, and with Harry's Auror missions that sprung up without warning, things between them hadn't been steady even when Harry was in a good mood. They'd never had the time to go on dates. 

"Harry," Malfoy said, as though it was a foreign word that he was trying to learn how to pronounce. It sent a shiver down Harry's spine, the kind that had nothing to do with cold, that shook briefly in his toes and every inch of his body. "It's strange. I'm so used to Potter at this point that everything else feels wrong." 

Harry rolled his eyes and directed the conversation to another topic, where it eventually devolved into a heated conversation about the role of dignity in a civilized society. Harry had never felt more alive than those few minutes, sitting across from Malfoy with his eyes alight and retorts dancing on the tip of his tongue. 

This was what he loved about Malfoy. This, the way he felt like he could talk for hours and spend the rest of his life like that, engaged in some debate or meandering conversation. Just being in Malfoy's presence was everything. There was something intoxicating about him that went so far past physical that it shook Harry, and he wondered — not for the first time — why it had to be Malfoy, of all people in the world. 


	45. Chapter 45

Harry went home that night with Malfoy by his side, giddy with a happiness that he hadn't felt in a long time. It almost scared him, how good this was. This thing with Malfoy, the one that everybody else claimed would inevitably end due to who they were and their obviously clashing personalities. But Harry didn't think they clashed. They fit strangely well together, their pasts so intertwined and now their present too. 

"I had fun," Harry said awkwardly when they got home, and then he cursed himself for even talking because of how stupid it sounded. He hated how out of place he felt now that it was labeled as 'dating.' It was just Malfoy, he reminded himself once again. It didn’t matter what he said. He didn’t have to worry about that.

"Of course you did," Malfoy scoffed. "I was there, what else would you expect?" Harry snorted, dropping onto the couch and putting his feet up. 

"Really, Malfoy? You know, you act like you have this uncrackable exterior, like you're completely cool and you don't care about a thing in the world, but you do. And I have proof." 

"Don't be ridiculous," Malfoy said, even if there was now a pink tinge spreading across his face. "I do not." 

"Really?" Harry asked with a grin. "I seen to remember you holding my hand back in the coffeeshop." 

"I absolutely did nothing of the sort," Malfoy insisted, sitting next to Harry on the couch, merely an inch of space between them that was still too much for Harry's liking. He nudged Malfoy with his elbow and scooted over so that their legs were pressed up against each other. 

"Whatever you say," Harry whispered, leaning into Malfoy’s side. This was strange for him too, being vulnerable. It was something that he'd never had a lot of practice at — guarding his emotions had always been one of his primary concerns, and now everything felt different. Because he'd never wanted to be vulnerable before. With nobody in the world. Except Malfoy. He wanted to be open, to let Malfoy see pieces of him that he stashed away from the world, hiding with an embarrassment that even his Gryffindor bravery-slash-recklessness couldn't overcome. 

When he woke up, he was tucked into his own bed and light was streaming through the window, sunny and new. Harry lay there for a moment as he remembered the events of the previous day. It was though a ray of pure happiness was washing over him, and he basked in it, unable to express the complete happiness that filled every inch of his body, that made him want to get up and run around and _experience_ the world with Malfoy.

If this was what he’d been missing when he took Dreamless, he finally understood why everyone had been so worried. Dulling bad emotions was one thing. Running away from problems was never good.

But dulling this, this complete satisfaction, the feel of blankets wrapped around him that he knew Malfoy must have put there… He dragged himself out of bed a moment later, making his way down the stairs, almost imagining he could smell bacon in his half-asleep dream state. Maybe he’d been dreaming about bacon, he thought dreamily, because he could smell it so clearly. 

He walked into the kitchen to find Malfoy standing there, humming cheerfully and flipping a pancake the muggle way, no magic involved. He seemed so at peace like this, his back to Harry and breakfast cooking on the stove. 

"Hey," Harry murmured, walking up beside him. "What are you doing?" 

"Reading the newspaper," Malfoy said without a second's hesitation, continuing to flip the pancakes until they were almost perfect. Harry tried to imagine when he'd learned to cook like this. "I'm making breakfast, idiot. You aren't supposed to be awake yet." 

Harry couldn't help it. The combination of Malfoy making breakfast and his smile, open from the toll of the morning, still slightly clouded over with sleep, that smile aimed at Harry — it was all too much. 

He took Malfoy's face in his own hands, feeling the skin beneath him, barely believing the closeness, the feel of his palms against the cool surface of Malfoy's face. He ran a finger gently across his cheek, treasuring it, wanting to learn every inch of this skin and memorize it, save it, have it there if he ever lost this. He never wanted to lose this. "You're ridiculous," Harry murmured, and he kissed Malfoy, ignoring the pancakes on the stove behind them. 

He pulled Malfoy closer, wanting no distance between them, wanting to feel every part of Malfoy — snarky, tender, considering, hesitant — millions of emotions he might never have expected, but emotions that were all a part of Malfoy nonetheless, a part of this person who had somehow decided that Harry was somebody he wanted.

He couldn’t help himself, couldn't hold back from letting out a breath at the feel of Malfoy's lips against his own, because he didn't think he'd ever get used to this, to the eagerness with which Malfoy kissed him even when he was drowsy from sleep, as though he too didn't want a second apart. As though he wanted them to become one. 

His tongue darted out to swipe gently along Harry's bottom lip, and Harry felt a shudder coursing through his whole body. He was coming apart at the seams from a simple touch, and he considered briefly if that was dangerous to have such a weakness, to turn to putty in Malfoy's hands and practically melt into whatever he wanted. But Harry couldn't stop. It was impossibly intoxicating, the feeling of Malfoy against him, and he never wanted this to stop. 

"The pancakes are going to burn," Malfoy muttered, pushing Harry back reluctantly, his hand firm against Harry's chest as though he couldn't make up his mind as to whether he wanted to push or pull. "Stop distracting me, Potter." 

"I can't help it," Harry grinned, and he said it jokingly, but it was scarily true. He couldn't help it. He was weak to Malfoy's pull. 

"You can if it means burning breakfast," Malfoy frowned. "Go sit down and read the newspaper or whatever you usually do in the mornings." 

"Are you kidding?" Harry asked, yawning. "I'm never up this early on weekends. If I don't have to be awake, what's the point?" Malfoy raised his eyebrow at Harry, that seamless movement that made Harry want to kiss him and punch him all at the same time, because it wasn't fair that someone could look so bloody elegant at the raise of a stupid eyebrow. 

"We're going out later," Malfoy said, carrying in a plate of steaming pancakes. 

"Are we now?" Harry asked, his eyes still trapped on the food. His stomach was grumbling, and he knew Malfoy was a good cook. It wasn't his fault. "On a date?" 

"Shut up," Malfoy said, his face reddening again. "If you keep talking the answer's going to be no." 

"Are you kidding me?" Harry asked, pausing with a fork halfway to his mouth. "Where are we going?" Malfoy eyed him suspiciously and then sighed, leaning back. 

"It's a museum," he said slowly. "A quidditch museum. I thought you might like it, seeing as you're always so insistent that the Chudley Cannons are going to be top of the league because of Belikov, despite the fact tha they lose every year. Anyway. It's probably stupid, we don't have to —“ 

"That sounds brilliant," Harry said, looking at Malfoy with a whole different expression. 

"It's not for you," Malfoy grumbled. "I just want to go." 

"Mmhmm," Harry murmured, knowing the lie when he heard it. At the beginning, perhaps he would have been annoyed at that, but he understood that there was something in Malfoy compelling him to hide whenever he cared. "You don't have to lie, you know. We're dating. It's not weak or anything for you to do things for other people. You have to get that idea out of your head." 

Malfoy grunted and took another bite, cutting the pancake into small squares with his fork and knife, the picture of civility.

The weekend passed in a blur of happiness that filled Harry with a shining bubble he couldn't get rid of, something he felt steadily growing inside of him over the course of the weekend, as the hours waned on. 

It was the little things, it was the big things, it was everything in between. It was feeling Malfoy slip his hand into Harry's as they walked through the Quidditch museum, looking in the opposite direction with a bright red stain on his cheeks, but holding on tight nonetheless. 

It was when Harry took Malfoy to a muggle library just outside of the town where he'd grown up and watched Malfoy marvel over the shelves and shelves of books, exclaiming his amazement at the fact that Muggles had created all these and trying to hide how impressed he was.

"Wizards don't have novels like this," he informed Harry, eyes roving over the fantasy section. "There's too much magic to document. All these stories... there are wizardingchildren's stories of course, but it kind of runs out after that."

It was Malfoy bringing home a teetering stack of books and curling up next to Harry on the couch to work his way steadily through them, hiding his tears at an especially emotional part and exclaiming aloud at random points throughout the book.

It was kissing Malfoy, it was being able to touch him and exist with him, it was having strange conversations filled with the kind of intelligence that made Harry think about things he'd never realized before, it was arguing and ranting and having Malfoy hold him when he couldn't move from the couch for absolutely no reason. 

It was this casual intimacy that they'd somehow built up without realizing it. It was that he had something he'd never imagined having, something that made his ideas of a relationship pale in comparison. 

It was this thing between them, this unconventional impossible thing, this thing that meant he could spend every minute of his day with Malfoy and never grow tired, when previously he barely could have tolerated a single minute.   

When Monday rolled around, they apparated to Skin Deep together, whirling into this place that made Harry let out a breath of relief. 

There was something about this place that reminded Harry of the Muggle hardware stores, the ones that Mr. Dursley had dragged him along to some days when he was looking at drills. The smell, the atmosphere, something about it that made Harry remember to relax the tension from his shoulders that he hadn't even noticed until that second. 

"You work here now," Harry said, looking around and letting his eyes land on Malfoy. 

"You have a real talent for stating the obvious," Malfoy commented, and he peered around the shop like this was the first time he'd been here. "Too bad you can't make a living off that, you'd be able to donate to every charity in the known world and still have plenty left over. It would put the current Potter fortune to shame."

"Oh, lay off," Harry grinned, even though he never wanted Malfoy to lay off. It was strange how the things he used to find annoying only made him laugh now, made him want to smile, filled him with that strange happiness that had been slowly building over the past few days. 

Harry immersed himself in his work. He loved this, becoming one with the magic, forgetting that everything else in the world existed. And now he had even less to worry about — he wouldn't be interrupted by stray customers or people that wanted to come to him instead of Dean, because Malfoy was there as a buffer, setting up appointments and telling them to leave when they tried to catch a glimpse of Harry. 

Harry loved this, feeling out the different possibilities and the flow of the magic, like it was a whole different language. 

The tattoos were growing more and more complex, the ideas more inventive and practical. Some of the designs that people were coming up with made Harry question the whole Wizarding world at large. 

He thought about back at Hogwarts, when he sat in his dorm and complained about homework, when there was this whole undiscovered world of magic laying out in front of him, one that nobody seemed to be taking advantage of.

The more he worked, the more he realized that they hadn't even scratched the surface of the possibilities for magic. 

It was the kind of thing that Harry could see himself spending years on, cooped up in a shack with himself and inspecting the way all his charms fit together into one spell, into one incantation that usually failed at first test. But the second it came together, the second the tattoo started moving seamlessly, a well oiled machine of magic that Harry had created with his own hands, every second of it became worth it. 

There was only one consistent problem, something he hadn't yet been able to solve. 

"It drains magic," Harry told Malfoy over lunch, at the coffee shop he'd come to think of as theirs. "These tattoos, as they get complex, it takes away from what you can do with other spells."

"What do you mean?" Malfoy asked consideringly, taking a sip of his tea. 

"You know with your Mark?" Harry asked, nodding towards the Narcissus flowers that now darted across his arms. "How it drained all the magic we tried to put on top of it?"

"Mmm," Malfoy said, nodding in agreement while he took another sip of his tea, and Harry tried not to be distracted by the way he looked, by the quiet crease of concentration in his forehead and the way he'd turned all his attention on Harry, like the things Harry was interested in were the most fascinating things in the world. It made Harry want to stop talking and hug him, envelop him so tightly that he'd finally begin to understand how much he meant.

"The tattoos are kind of like your Mark," Harry explained. "Minus the dark magic, of course. You can only use a certain amount of energy at once when you’re doing magic, and the tattoos drain your magic slightly. For example, if an Auror gets a tattoo that requires a lot of magic, their shield charms won't be as strong."

"Oh," Malfoy nodded, seeming to understand. He stared into the swirling of his tea and tilted his head to the side, the way he did when he was deep in thought, as though he was having a conversation with himself and tilting his head allowed him to play the other part. "So you need a way to either increase magical energy or make it so that it doesn't take away from the rest of their available store."

"Exactly," Harry nodded, taking a sip of his own hot chocolate. He liked to stick to routine, to order the same thing every time, and it seemed like Malfoy did too. The waitress knew them now — barely had to say a word when she wanted their order, and smiled calmly when she brought it over to them.

"You know," Malfoy mused slowly, tapping at his chin. "Spells and enchantments react differently than potions. With magic and such."

"So?" Harry asked, waiting for him to get to the point, because it would inevitably be good. All of Malfoy's ideas were good, remarkably so, the kind that made him do a double take and look at everything from an entirely different angle. 

"So you might have more luck experimenting with potions," Malfoy shrugged, and Harry couldn't hold back a laugh at that. 

"Me, experimenting with potions?" He shook his head, looking away. "There are some things I can learn, even if it takes me a while, but potions..." he trailed off. "Potions are impossible, even if I'd had good instruction."

"Snape was fantastic at potions," Malfoy said evenly. 

"He was an awful teacher," Harry said, equally evenly, not in the mood to stick up for Snape when all he could remember was Neville's toad being force-fed a potion. 

"Perhaps," Malfoy said. There was a long pause. "I could work on potions, if you wanted. I have a lot of spare time between booking appointments. I could try to find a way to separate a certain amount of magic..." He trailed off, not seeming to realize he'd done so, already lost somewhere far away in his thoughts, and Harry wasn't sure if he wanted to bring Malfoy back out of his reverie.

Malfoy snapped out of it on his own and tilted his head at Harry in a question. 

"That sounds brilliant," Harry said. "Seriously. I'm pants at potions, and if there's a possible solution somewhere there it could make a huge difference. It could make a lot of things possible."

"Okay," Malfoy said, smiling tentatively, and Harry recalled his love of potions from back at school. 

"Right," Harry said, draining the rest of his hot chocolate and nodding towards the door. "Shall we go, then? It seems we have a lot of work to be doing. Do you need any potion supplies?"

"I have plenty at the Manor," Malfoy said dismissively, waving him off. I can bring some to the shop..." He trailed off once more, the only thing keeping him in the world his hand against Harry's, warm and grasping, holding on like a lifeline. 

Harry held to him as well, wanting for nothing in his life to change. 


	46. Chapter 46

The days passed in that same way — they worked tirelessly at Skin Deep, accomplishing so much in the next week that Dean thought they must have been using a shortcut somehow, when the answer was really that Harry and Malfoy immersed themselves so fully in their work that they barely emerged to talk. 

They were working with and against each other, running against the clock in a kind of good-spirited competition that only seemed to spur them on further, churning out potions and tattoos faster than before. At night, they would sit in the living room, curled together on the couch and talking idly, exchanging lazy kisses every now and then. 

It was Friday when Harry leaned his head on Malfoy's shoulder. 

He felt a tugging at his hair and looked up to find Malfoy's fingers gently pulling through a tangle. 

"Your hair is a mess, Potter," he said softly, and somehow he made _Potter_ sound endearing. This was so strange, so perfect. It kept hitting Harry over and over again, because it seemed like he and Malfoy had gone from less than nothing nothing to something in the blink of an eye, something he barely realized. He still barely understood why Malfoy of all people. And yet, Malfoy seemed to read his mind once again, considering him with a tilted head. 

"Why did you go out with me?" he asked, voice still soft, overcome by the crackling of the fire, and Harry turned his head slightly to look at Malfoy, eyes connecting in that way that made Harry feel like he was being pinned down. "What is it about me that made you want to do something like that?" 

"What do you mean?" Harry mumbled, frowning into Malfoy's shoulder, losing himself in the gentle tugging of fingers in his hair. 

"I don't understand how anyone could like me," Malfoy said, shrugging. "Or even if you do, how you could choose me out of the millions of people. Even girl-Weasley." And there it was, behind the shield of feigned self-importance and jokes about how he was superior to everyone else in the world. Behind it all was a crippling self-doubt, so much that it hurt Harry to hear. How could Malfoy not see? 

"You're smart," Harry began, breathing against the exposed skin right where the collar of Malfoy's sweater rode down. 

"So is Granger," Malfoy said simply, his fingers not pausing at all while he spoke, threading through the messy curls of Harry's head, so soft, nothing like he'd ever have imagined Malfoy's fingers to feel like before. But everything was different now, wasn't it? "And a million other people in the world." 

"Not in the way you are," Harry shrugged. "You get fascinated. When we were reading those books about tattoos, you completely lose yourself in them, like you couldn't get enough of learning. You flaunt your knowledge so you can beat me, but sometimes you hold it back and keep it a secret, like you don't really want to come across all-knowing. You secretly love learning, and reading, even though you pretend you're above it and you knew it all since birth." 

"That isn't —“ Malfoy began, frowning, but Harry cut him off, pressing a finger to his lips. 

"Be quiet. That was one thing." Malfoy sighed — Harry could feel it, the rise and fall of his chest, careful and delicate underneath his head. "You're also kind. You pretend you aren't, but you've been there every time I woke up in the hospital. You help me with problems. You take me to see my family and you're there for me through it all." 

Malfoy made to interrupt him again, but Harry cut him off. He'd started, and now it was all pouring out, everything that had accumulated since he'd met Malfoy again, things he'd barely realized that he noticed until right now when the words came flooding out of him without an inkling of permission. 

"It's everything, Malfoy, you absolute idiot. You sacrificed yourself for your mother — you could have spent your whole life in that jail, and you didn't even think twice. You care. Like I said, you care so much more than you let on. You hide everything about you behind this exterior, but behind it you're the kind of person who made friends with me when I didn't even realize we were friends." 

"I'm not a good person," Malfoy said hoarsely. 

"You're funny," Harry plowed ahead. "You took me out to lunch when you noticed I wasn't eating. You have a kind of snark that feels almost above everyone else, a kind of humor that's something different but also my kind of humor. You'll argue with me for hours — maybe for the sake of it, but it's fun. You know what you're talking about. You're determined to destroy me with ridiculous facts that sometimes I’m certain you made up.” 

"Stop —“ Malfoy whispered, his hands clutching in Harry's hair, tighter than they had been a moment before. 

"There's more," Harry said matter-of-factly. “I can tell you anything. You won’t judge me, and if you do, it’s never in a bad way, not like when the newspapers pick up every available bit of gossip they can. I _want_ to tell you everything. I want to talk with you for hours.”

“That’s enough,” Malfoy whispered, and his hands started combing through Harry’s hair again, his breathing slightly ragged. “I get the idea, Potter.”

Harry studied him carefully, which was different from this angle.

“Do you see?” Harry asked quietly. “You aren’t like anyone. I hope you know that.”

Malfoy shrugged in response, but he combed his fingers through the knots once more, working out the places that Harry always ignored. 

“Whatever you say, Potter,” he whispered, letting his hand linger against the skin of Harry’s forehead.

On Monday, there was a breakthrough. Malfoy came running into Harry's office, grinning wildly and waving a vial in front of him. 

"What is it?" Harry asked, looking at the innocuous potion. It wasn't bubbling, not emitting steam, not any bright color that drew his eye immediately. In fact, when he tried to see what color it was, all colors seemed to escape his mind. It was as though the potion was colorless — an inexplicable colorless. Not clear, not white, just... colorless. 

"I think it'll be able to divert magic," Malfoy explained quickly. "While you're sleeping, while you're resting, while you're not using spells. It does it at a rate slow enough that it won't have any effect on your magical signature long-term. It won't be like that time you went to the hospital for working yourself to the bone."

"But then..." Harry trailed off, considering. 

"When you aren't using magic, it stores it in the tattoo," Malfoy elaborated. "Once that magic is cordoned off, you’ll have access to it later without depleting your stores.”

Harry gaped at him.

"Are you serious?" he asked, still trying to put a color to it.

"Serious as I've ever been," Malfoy said, holding out the potion in offering. "Try it. It should work."

And indeed, it did. It worked so perfectly that Dean was exclaiming over Malfoy for the rest of the day, proclaiming that he would be promoted to the owner of the shop if he kept up the work. In fact, he was so impressed with Malfoy and Harry that he told them they could have a day off to celebrate if they wanted. 

They took the day gratefully, going back to the flat and collapsing onto the couch. It was at that moment that Harry remembered something suddenly. 

"Hey," he said out of nowhere. "You remember Luna Lovegood, right?"

Malfoy tensed at the name, as though it caused him physical pain to hear the words spoken out loud, but he nodded sharply. "What about her?" he asked, shoulders still pushed up to his shoulders. 

"We're friends," Harry said slowly, wondering what had gotten Malfoy so shut-off all of a sudden. He wasn’t usually one to explain that kind of thing without prompting, but luckily, Harry was good at prompting. “What is it?”

“She was stuck in my basement and tortured for a long time,” Malfoy said shortly. “There was nothing I could do to help except try to sneak her potions when nobody was looking. It wasn’t — it was horrible, and she’s so strangely forgiving that she doesn’t hold any of it against me even though she should, and I don’t know how she doesn’t understand that. I want her to hate me. It’s… not good memories.”

“Oh,” Harry said softly. “I was going to invite her over, but I can just go visit her if you’d rather not see her.”

“No,” Malfoy said quickly, squaring his shoulders as though he was taking it as a challenge. “I can’t yell at you for bottling up your feelings and running away from your past and then do the same thing. I have to make peace with things before I can put them in the past, and I have to — to apologize, even though that barely means anything.”

“Are you sure?” Harry checked, letting his hand drift over to Malfoy’s knee in what he hoped was a comforting gesture. “You don’t have to, especially not now. It’s completely up to you.”

“I want to,” Malfoy said. “She used to tell me stories of her father’s travels when I went down. I was supposed to be torturing them, but she would take turns faking screams with whoever else was down there. I can’t — I couldn’t — I can’t torture anyone.” He was looking at Harry desperately now, as though this was something he _needed_ him to understand, and his gaze looked glossy, tears hanging over the lense of his eyes.

“I know,” Harry whispered, and he squeezed Malfoy’s knee. “Draco, I know. You aren’t that kind of person. You would never do something like that. I know you, and you would never torture anyone willingly. You didn’t torture Luna, and there could have been huge repercussions if someone discovered that. That was brave. You’re brave.”

Malfoy let out a deep breath and gave Harry a sad smile. “What did I ever do to deserve you, idiot?” he asked, tossing _idiot_ in at the end to assuage the sting of having to share his feelings. 

“I’ve been asking myself the same thing,” Harry smiled, and he stood up. “I’m going to owl Luna then, yeah? See if she can come over for lunch? Maybe you can teach me how to cook some fancy snobby Pureblood dish.”

“Not if you keep making fun of me!” Malfoy tossed over his shoulder, already on the way to the kitchen, and Harry laughed as he followed, grabbing a quill on the way so he could write to Luna. 

Harry could immediately tell Luna's knock apart from that of everyone else. It had a quality to it that Harry could only think to describe as dreamy, something floaty and unsure, uneven spaces between the knocks that were already light enough.

"I've got it," he said to Malfoy over his shoulder, who was busy cutting up a platter of fruit and arranging it by color, something Harry had deemed entirely unnecessary but Malfoy had protested for vigorously.

"Hi Harry!" Luna said excitedly when the door opened. She skipped inside, toeing off a strange pair of shoes that curled up at the ends, the kind of thing Harry read about in muggle fairy tales where elves pranced around with pointed ears and curly boots instead of being enslaved to do household chores.

"Hey Luna," Harry grinned. "I'm so glad you could make it, you're just in time for lunch. Malfoy's finishing it up right now."

"Oh, is he here too?" Luna asked interestedly, cocking her head towards Harry for a moment and fixing him with the piercing blue of her eyes before she turned to look around the flat, spinning on one heel.

"Yeah," Harry said. "He's — er — there was something wrong with the Manor, and he needed a place to stay."

"That's delightful," Luna smiled, skipping into the kitchen. Harry heard her voice from a distance as he followed behind her, trying to catch up. "Hi Draco! I haven't talked to you in such a long time, it's really a shame."

"Hello," Malfoy said, and Harry could already tell by his tone of voice that he was out of his element, probably standing with his shoulders hugging his ears, tense like all the rest of the muscles in his body, speaking in that formal tone that he reverted to whenever he was uncomfortable or didn't know what to say. “I’m sorry.”

“What for?” Luna asked, looking surprised. Her hair was tied back with a strange kind of pin that seemed to flap around even when she was standing still, and Harry couldn’t look away.

“For everything during the war,” Malfoy muttered, looking down at his feet. “For doing nothing to help you.”

Luna looked at him for a long moment and then enveloped him in a hug, folding her arms around him and pulling him close. She murmured something in his ear, something Harry didn’t quite catch, but the words weren’t meant for him anyway. Malfoy nodded briskly, and when she pulled away, he cleared his throat.

"How have you been?"

"Rather good," Luna said, cheerful as always, and Harry walked into the kitchen behind her. "I'm on the brink of discovering a new species at the moment, I've been following a strange set of tracks for days now, and I have a lot of evidence that it's related to the Crumple-horned Snorkack."

Malfoy looked politely incredulous at those words, but he didn't mention it. Instead he placed down the last strawberry in his array with a flourish, handing the platter to Harry and nodding towards the table. 

"Shall we?" he asked, only slightly more relaxed. "You can tell us more about the new species, Luna, if you want."

Luna looked surprised. 

"You don't really want me to, do you?" she asked curiously. "I know you don't believe in the things I'm saying — you probably think I've gone a little bit crazy. You don't have to humor me."

"We've all gone a little bit crazy," Malfoy said simply. "Different brands of crazy, but crazy nonetheless. We'd be delighted to hear about the new species."

"Okay," Luna said happily, and she smiled at Malfoy, a warm smile that visibly eased the tension in Malfoy's shoulders. "Let me explain."


	47. Chapter 47

As much as everything seemed to suddenly be coming together and coalescing into this wonderful place that Harry thought he could live in for the rest of their life, Harry's mind was still being plagued. During the day sometimes, in the down moments when he wasn't by Malfoy's side — sometimes when he was as well. 

They were slipping moments, where the urge to fall back into his old habits and quench all his emotions was difficult to resist, when the only thought in his mind was the pull of Dreamless Sleep, when he didn't care if he would lose his happiness as well as sadness, because he wanted everything to be gone and he wanted never to feel again. 

Most of all though, it was the night. It was when he fell asleep, Malfoy on the sofa and him in his bed, curled up into the mattress and blocking out all light by drawing a blanket close over his head. It reminded him of being stuck in his cupboard with footsteps over his head, trying to fall asleep in a space far too small to fit him. And when Harry fell asleep, the nightmares came. 

They were inevitable, the thing that had propelled Dreamless in the first place, and they seemed to have no desire to leave. They plagued him hour after hour, swirling through his mind where everyone spoke with the voice of Voldemort, where Malfoy turned into a Death Eater and Ginny told him he was going to be the death of everyone. They didn't end. Harry couldn't pull himself out of them, so they went on for what felt like years, torturing him into an oblivion.

So instead here he was, stuck in a stasis with pain flooding him, unable to break free from it even if he’d recognized that he was in a dream. His limbs were lead, chained down as though with a spell, and his mind was still swirling like he’d dived headfirst into a pensieve and was being forced to relive memories of the war.

Like Narcissa was forced to do, day after day and night after night.

“Potter. _Harry.”_

It was that voice again, cutting through his nightmares, the only thing that seemed to be able to snap him out of it. 

“Harry.” Again, sharp, skin against his and fingers tight around his wrist. 

Harry jerked out of sleep, trembling against Malfoy’s hand, rolling over in the bed and trying to shield himself from the ever-present grip of terror. 

“Where am I?” Harry gasped out. He knew where he was, in the back of his mind, but he had to _hear_ it and know it was real. He had to be convinced that this wasn’t all one big dream still and he was stuck 

“You’re with me,” Malfoy said quietly, sitting on the edge of Harry’s bed, his thumb running along the skin on his wrist in a rhythm that was comforting, that provided him an extra grip on reality. “You were having a nightmare, but I’m here now. It’s okay.”

But even though Malfoy was talking, his words slow and gentle, Harry was still losing the real world. All he could see was Voldemort, standing with his wand outstretched, clasped in long pale fingers that alternated between Malfoy’s and Voldemort’s, flipping like a switch.

Harry stared into that face that he could still see and he felt his anger growing steadily, felt his temper growing. His wrist started to glow red — Malfoy’s hand stilled. He drew one finger over the line, now pulsing a dull cinnamon color. 

“Whatever you were dreaming about, it’s over now,” Malfoy reassured him softly, watching the red bracelet that was starting to prickle Harry’s wrist. He knew he had to calm down now, and Malfoy appeared to be having the same thoughts. “Take deep breaths, okay? It was a dream, it’s over now.” The red had stagnated, staying at one exact shade, standing out strongly against the skin on his wrist, right above the scar that still read out in pale letters _I must not tell lies._

“Do you want me to leave?” Malfoy asked quietly. “Would that help?”

Harry shook his head, wishing he could communicate without having to speak, and he tried to pull Malfoy closer. He took another deep breath, pressing his arm against Malfoy’s.

_A nightmare,_ he repeated to himself. _That’s all it was. None of it’s real._ He tried to resist the urge to reach out for Dreamless Sleep. This needn’t have happened in the first place, if only people would let him have it. 

A spike of anger shot through him, and Malfoy shifted. 

“Why are you angry?” he asked quietly.

“I could’ve taken Dreamless Sleep and none of this would have happened,” Harry burst out, and Malfoy held him tighter at those words, kicking his legs onto the bed and wrapping his arms around Harry like a koala bear that needed to be closer. 

“Dreamless Sleep makes you feel nothing,” Malfoy murmured. “That’s no way to live, Harry.”

Harry’d noticed that Malfoy tended to use his first name at night, when his guards were let down and his mood was still tempered by sleep. Harry liked how it sounded, wanted to play it on repeat until he fell asleep. 

“I know,” he murmured, because he did know and he didn’t want to give up the things Malfoy made him feel, the way a smile seemed to jump onto his face at the mere sight of Malfoy or the mere sound of his voice. He’d never felt like this — never _this_ happy, never this close to another person the way he was with Malfoy. 

“It’s almost two in the morning,” Malfoy said softly, and he started to sit up, to extract himself. As though he wanted to go back to the couch. Harry couldn’t bear that, because the last thing he needed right now was to be alone. Malfoy stilled and looked back to him in a clear question when Harry grabbed on to his wrist, holding fast. 

“Will you stay?” Harry asked softly, burying his face in the pillow, because it didn’t seem to matter that he and Malfoy had been — dating — for the past week. Vulnerability still felt near-impossible for Harry, a product of shutting things away in the past. But Malfoy didn’t protest. Instead he hummed and shifted closer, wrapping draping one arm over Harry and running his fingers through the mess of hair like he’d done before, gently working out knots. 

Harry’s tattoo faded slowly, the red melting into a color that was darker, nearing black, almost back to the inky band it’d started out as. 

He drifted off again like that, held in Malfoy’s arms, remarkably strong based on the way he looked — skinny, almost lanky, the way Ron had looked during Hogwarts. But there was a strength in Malfoy that his looks didn’t betray, lurking beneath his skin, beneath that shell — that mask, the one that concealed everything about him from the rest of the world and made his life into a secret.

* * * 

The next day at work, Harry was greeted by a face. It was one that made Harry’s emotions split in two. Recoiling and curious at the same time, because why on earth would _Robards_ be at the tattoo shop? Of all people, that was the last thing Harry would have expected to be getting a tattoo — straightforward, down to business, and against anybody who contradicted that philosophy. 

Except then Dean came out of the back room and greeted him happily, talking quietly and pointing in Harry and Malfoy’s direction. Harry shot a look at Dean, meant to be a question, but Dean just responded with a grin. 

“Harry,” Robards said gruffly, turning to face him and holding out a hand. Harry stared at the outstretched hand for a moment, weighing the situation, still not understanding what was happening here. Hesitantly he took the hand and shook it, cocking his head to the side. 

“What do you want?” he asked slowly, trying not to sound as demanding as the words implied, but Robards didn’t seem to care. 

“I was wondering about the possibility of employing you,” he said shortly, and Harry’s head shot up in shock, waiting to see if this was some kind of practical joke, wondering when Ron was going to jump out and shout surprise or when somebody would announce that it was April Fool’s day. But none of that happened. Robards waited impatiently, tapping his foot against the ground.

“I’m sorry, what?” Harry asked, the only adequate answer he could muster. It made no sense for Robards to be hiring him after the debacle he’d created last time. 

“You heard me,” Robards said, and Harry felt himself go tense. Malfoy tensed as well — Harry could feel it, could see the coiling in his body, could feel the tension in the air. “I want to employ you.”

“Why?”

“To design tattoos,” Robards said shortly. “Magical tattoos with purposes for Auror use.”

Harry raised one eyebrow, still half-certain that this was a joke after the disgrace with which he’d been dismissed last time, but still, Robards showed no signs of laughing. It appeared he was genuinely serious.

“Why me? Why not Dean?”

“He said you were the one that worked with magic,” Robards said impatiently. “I don’t have all day, Harry. If you’re not going to accept, then tell me now.”

“There are still some flaws with the magic,” Harry said hurriedly, shooting a glance at Malfoy. “If I were to work for you, I’d need Draco to come with me. He does all the potions work, he’s the only one capable of it, and I need his designs if you want this to happen.”

Robards tensed. He was annoyed, Harry could tell, and it made his blood sing. He wanted Robards to be annoyed after the way he’d yelled at Harry after every mission, no matter how well it had gone. 

“Fine,” Robards agreed finally, nodding curtly. “He can come with you. Are you accepting, then?”

Harry looked over at Malfoy in askance, and Malfoy shrugged in response, giving him a tiny nod that Harry understood perfectly. 

“We’re accepting, but only if we can work from here,” Harry said finally. “We need to help run Skin Deep still, but we’re willing to work on designs for Auror tattoos in our free time. Give us the functionalities you want these tattoos to have and we’ll do our best to figure it out. No promises.”

“Deal,” Robards said, still as clipped as before. He turned, shoes clicking, but Harry called after him. 

“Wait! One other condition. If this ends up going to the newspapers as some grand story about the new Auror methods or whatever, you have to cite Draco’s name in a positive light. One bad quote about him and I’m retracting my agreement. That’s not negotiable. None of this would be possible without the potions he makes, and I’d better see that or hear that whenever you’re discussing this.”

“ _Fine,”_ Robards said, even shorter this time, and he turned once more, vanishing into thin air.

The second he was gone, Malfoy kissed Harry. It was unexpected, sudden — Malfoy didn’t usually like displaying affection in public, but perhaps he forgot they were in public. 

“Oi, save it for later, you two,” Dean called, and Malfoy broke away immediately, looking around wildly. Apparently Harry was right. He’d completely forgotten they weren’t alone. His face was bright red by now, and Dean snickered, turning to walk back into his office. The second he was gone, Malfoy groaned and buried his face in Harry’s shoulder, like it was a shield against inevitable embarrassment. 

“Hey, idiot,” Harry said, wiggling his shoulder slightly so Malfoy had to lift his head. “We’ve got a job working for the Aurors now, you hear that?”

“Robards didn’t look too happy,” Malfoy smirked, and Harry laughed at that, about to reply when the bell above the door rang and Ron came strolling in, hair still bright as ever, a signature, a beacon that immediately alerted them to his presence. 

“Ron!” Harry exclaimed, and he was momentarily panicked — he forgot for a second where they stood, but then Ron smiled tentatively and everything clicked back into place. 

“Hey mate,” he said, and then glanced over at Malfoy. “Malfoy,” he said with a nod that could almost be considered civil. “I heard Robards gave you a new job. He walked into the office muttering about it under his breath, you know how he is. He feels like it was beneath his dignity to give you a job after he fired you.”

“All I’ve ever wanted is for Robards to feel undignified because of me,” Harry smirked. 

Ron laughed and shook his head, leaning against the strip of wall beside the door and peering around the shop. "Well, you certainly did that." He considered the back desk where Malfoy usually sat, a cauldron off to the side where he was experimenting with a new brand of potions. "This is the place, eh? I haven't been here much."

"This is it," Harry said with a sweeping gesture. "You want a tattoo? On the house, if you ever decide you want to. We're pretty talented, between the three of us."

"Nah, I don't trust Malfoy not to give me some weird face tattoo or something," Ron laughed. Harry felt Malfoy bristle momentarily before he realized it was in jest, because Ron shot Malfoy a look that was part calculating, part approval, part amusement. It was so different than the Ron who'd been whispering about love potions behind closed doors that Harry did a double take. 

"I can't promise I would be able to resist the temptation," Malfoy said, his posh voice more distinctive than ever, a drawl that was different than usual. Not cruel.

"Harry, you want to come over for dinner tonight? And games or whatever, it doesn't really matter. We can't have you forgetting about us when you get too caught up in other stuff. It feels like we barely see each other recently."

"Sure," Harry said, not even having to think about it before he answered, because he'd always agree to doing things with Ron and Hermione. 

There was a pause, and then Ron glanced over at Malfoy, who was still standing there awkwardly and listening to their conversation. Ron sighed and looked at Harry, not meeting Malfoy's eyes. 

"Er - he can come too, if you want."

"Malfoy?" Harry asked, a warmth running through him at the possibility that Ron would be willing to put aside his long standing hatred. 

"Yeah," Ron shrugged. "Whatever. Evidently you're good friends, so I guess we should get to know him." He didn't sound particularly excited about it, but Harry didn't care. He wanted to hug Ron, to let him know how much it meant that he was willing to do that for Harry.

"Okay," Harry said, as tentative as Ron had sounded. "That's — cool. Yeah. What time should we come, then?"

"Whenever," Ron yawned. "I should probably get back before Robards kills me or fires me or whatever else he's planning on doing. He's in quite a mood at the moment. Any special dinner requests?"

"Whatever you make is perfect," Harry said, and he glanced at Malfoy, who still hadn't spoken in a word. He was just observing, in that way that said he was taking in every detail of the room, every word in the conversation and all the subtext beneath that. Malfoy had a way of reading rooms that went far beyond observation. 

"Sounds good," Ron said. "See you then." And with that he walked back out of the door, twisting on one foot and disapparating into thin air. 


	48. Chapter 48

Malfoy was panicking. Harry had tried multiple times to convince him that this wasn't a big deal, but Malfoy was having none of it. He was pacing the floor in front of the couch where Harry was sitting, his steps carefully in line as he muttered under his breath. 

"It's just Ron and Hermione, it's going to be fine," Harry said placatingly, sitting cross legged in that way that muggles seemed far more fond of than wizards. Perhaps because it was easier without robes hindering you. 

"Just Ron and Hermione?" Malfoy said incredulously. "Potter. The weasel hates me, Granger should hate me too, and now I'm dating you and they're your friends. What about this is going to be fine?"

"Ron doesn't hate you," Harry said evenly, the same words he'd said far too many times that night. "And Hermione doesn't either. They're open to change, you know. If you show them that you aren't a complete dick anymore, everything will be perfectly fine. I promise you that. Besides, they'll see that I'm happy, and that has to count for something."

Malfoy didn't stop pacing. 

"I should bring a gift," he said suddenly, looking wildly around the room like something might sprout out of nowhere. "What's a good gift to bring to people that you used to bully when you're trying to get on their good side because you're dating their best friend?"

"Malfoy," Harry said more sharply, patting the empty space beside him on the couch. "Stop moving for a minute and sit down."

Malfoy sat, his leg still tapping furiously against the ground, and he looked frankly miserable. 

"I really like you," Harry said. "A lot. It scares me sometimes how much I like you."

"That doesn't change the situation," Malfoy muttered. "Flattery will get you nowhere, Potter. Shut up and help me figure out how to vanish into thin air and never come back. There has to be a way. Maybe you can apparate into nothingness if you just picture something completely blank as your destination, do you think that would work?"

"Malfoy," Harry said again, emphasizing the name and putting his hand on Malfoy's knee, wanting to steady him, to somehow convey that everything would be completely fine. "I'm serious. What I was trying to say is that they know how much I like you. For Merlin's sake, after we figured out that whole Dark Mark thing and you were done needing my help, I went to Hermione and complained about missing you. They understand that for some reason you mean a lot."

"Did you actually say that?" Malfoy asked after a pause, looking at Harry with some undecipherable emotion in his eyes. Harry shrugged, embarrassed, and Malfoy leaned back against the couch, his leg slowing down in its ceaseless tapping. "I thought you'd be glad to be rid of me after that, to be completely honest."

"I thought the same thing," Harry said. "I refused to admit that I was helping you for any reason other than obligation. Denial. I'm good at that."

"I've noticed," Malfoy said, and Harry felt a jolt of satisfaction that he seemed to be momentarily distracted, and he struggled for another topic to latch on to.

"So. New job."

"Yeah," Malfoy said, nodding. "I wonder what kind of tattoos Robards has in mind, anyways. I don't see how it could be that big of a help to him."

"Are you kidding?" Harry asked, thanking the heavens, because this was something he could easily ramble about for hours on end. "There are so many possible uses. We worked in partners for the most part, there are a lot of charms you could do there - locating your partner, a tattoo that you can change the color of to mean something that's reflected on your partner's tattoo. Something innocuous. Not many people will question a tattoo if they're trying to kidnap you."

"I guess," Malfoy said slowly. "It feels like there aren't that many uses, though."

"I dunno," Harry said slowly. "After that potion, you could have tattoos that create low grade shield charms or that kind thing. I can think of a lot of different uses for it, especially in that kind of field. It makes it easy to identify other people — tattoos that don't get copied over into polyjuice or that need a certain code to be accessed. It's kind of genius actually. There are so many possibilities with magic that nobody takes advantage of, you know?"

"It's all relatively untapped," Malfoy agreed, and he appeared to remember at that moment that he was supposed to be worrying. "Ah, fuck. You had me for a minute. I almost forgot to freak out."

"Good," Harry said, his hand tight against Malfoy's knee. "You're thinking about this far too much, I've told you. The worst possible outcome is that they hate you, and that's not going to change how I feel."

"I don't want you to have to choose," Malfoy said desperately, burying his head in his knees. "I'm far more trouble than I'm worth."

"Hey," Harry said, a mix between gentle and fierce. "No. You aren't. You're just enough trouble. Besides, where's the fun without a little trouble?"

"Stop being so optimistic," Malfoy groaned. "Just tell me the world's going to fall apart and leave it at that, it's far more realistic. I don't need false hope."

"Fine," Harry sighed, rolling his eyes. "This is going to be a complete and utter disaster. It's going to be even worse than when our world was overrun by Death Eaters. It's going to be the new apocalypse and after tonight everything is going to come crashing down. I'll probably never see you again. At least one of us is going to end up dead, of course, and -"

"Okay, okay," Malfoy said, shoving Harry. "Good enough."

"Good," Harry said, satisfied. "Because we're leaving now."

"What?" Malfoy said, his voice raising a pitch. "You mean right now? This very second? Without any preparation?"

"You don't need time to prepare," Harry sighed. "What you're wearing looks perfect, and if we put it off too much longer you're going to have a breakdown, which neither of us needs. It's going to be wonderful."

"Okay, okay," Malfoy said, frantically running a hand down his robes like he had to smooth them out, even though they were immaculate. "Just - give me a minute, yeah?" He vanished from the room, and when he reappeared in the doorway he was holding a bouquet of flowers, various colors that compliment each other perfectly. "I'm ready. Or as ready as I can be, considering the circumstances."

"Perfect," Harry said with a smile, holding out his arm. Malfoy took it and they vanished from view, reappearing in the corridor to a flat that Harry knew almost as well as his own. "Ron, Hermione! We're here."

Malfoy still hadn't let go of his arm after apparating, as though he needed something to help him stay standing. He was clutching the bouquet tightly in his hand, and when they got to the kitchen, he very nearly thrust it on Hermione.

"Is this for us?" Hermione asked, regarding the flowers with a startled air and bringing it up to her nose to smell. 

"Yes," Malfoy said, sounding more tightly wound than Harry had heard in a long time. "We very much appreciate you inviting us here, especially after our setbacks in the past, and -"

"Draco, it's okay," Hermione said kindly, smiling at him. "Don't worry about it. We're not going to interrogate you or anything, you're obviously close to Harry, and I trust his judgement well enough. We're here to have fun, yeah? Stop looking so terrified."

"Yeah," Ron said from the kitchen table, where he was kicked back with his feet up. "Don't worry, the worst that happens is we break a few of your bones, nothing that's too hard to mend."

"Ron!" Hermione admonished, looking over at him where his feet were now resting on the table. "Ronald Weasley! You get over here and help me cook right now instead of sitting there like you don't have anything to do! This is as much your job as it is mine!"

"Of course, of course," Ron grinned, slipping off the chair and walking up behind Hermione, hugging her around the middle. "You can go sit down, love, I'll take it from here."

"I'll supervise," Hermione said haughtily, crossing her arms and stepping back. "Otherwise it'll probably end up like one of your potions from back in Hogwarts, some smoldering black lump that smells like rotting flesh. That's never a good way to greet a new guest to your house, surely you know that."

Harry watched them bicker with a small smile on his face, and even Malfoy seemed to be looking less terrified now. 

Harry gathered his courage. He knew he'd have to tell them at some point and that holding off was just forestalling the inevitable. He wondered briefly if they'd already guessed — he wouldn't put it past Hermione to know — but he was pretty certain that Ron was still oblivious as ever. For once in his life, he wished Ron could be observant. 

"So," Harry said, clearing his throat and looking over at the two of them. "Er —“ he scratched the back of his neck and looked over at Malfoy for help, but Malfoy looked a million times more panicked, as though he was frozen into a block of ice or turned into some kind of statue. Harry almost laughed before he realized that probably wasn't his best course of action. 

"Yeah?" Ron asked, turning around and sneaking a bite of chicken while Hermione was focused on Harry. "What's up?"

"Er — I have to tell you something," he said slowly, glancing once more at Malfoy for support. "I've... I'm kind of dating somebody. I haven't told many people yet, but I figured I should — erm — I should probably tell you."

"Oh?" Ron asked, crossing one leg over the other. "What's her name? She a muggle?"

"Ah," Harry said, coughing, and there was a knowing gleam in Hermione's eye that told Harry she already knew without them having to speak a word. "You see, about that. It's not — not exactly a her."

"Are you kidding me?" Ron said, throwing up his hands in exasperation. "You can get absolutely anyone you want mate, I'm not even kidding. I thought it was bad enough that all the women are throwing themselves at you, but now you're going to have blokes too..." he trailed off, muttering something about how it was completely unfair, but Hermione was still doing her best to stifle a smile.

"So Harry," she said slowly, and Harry shot her a look. "Are you ever going to tell us who this mystery person is? Will we get to meet him?"

"Yes, er..." Harry trailed off, avoiding Ron's curious gaze and Hermione's knowing one, glancing at Malfoy for help because he didn't want to make Ron mad and -

"It's me," Malfoy said bluntly, looking down at the floor. "We're together."

Ron laughed at that, looking between Malfoy and Harry. 

"Good one," he said, but neither Harry nor Malfoy laughed, and then Ron's eyes widened. He glanced between the two of them again, and then he looked over at Hermione, who was still just smiling in that innocent way of hers. "Hold on. You mean you aren't joking? You're — you're dating Malfoy? Harry?"

"Yeah," Harry said, finally finding his voice. "I am."

"Blimey," Ron said, eyes wide. "Now that, I would _not_ have predicted. I — er, good on you mate?" he said it as a question, as though he'd never been prepared for the etiquette in this kind of situation. "As long as, er, as long as he makes you happy, I guess?" He threw his hands up again. "Fuck me, I have honestly no idea what to say. But if I ever see the two of you snogging in front of me or — or —“ He broke off, face turning purple. "Keep the contact to a minimum is all I'm saying."

Hermione was laughing now, leaning against the counter and watching the scene like it was all one big amusing show. She put her arm around Ron.

"I'm glad you told us," she said, smiling at the two of them. "I wasn't sure at first, but somehow I think it actually might work. You've always had a strange relationship."

"Thanks, Hermione," Harry said sarcastically, rolling his eyes. "Can we eat? I'm starving, and I'd rather not stand here with Ron gawking at me for another minute."

"Yeah, let's eat!" Ron said quickly. "Chicken," he muttered to himself, as if that were more stable ground, because at least chicken couldn't surprise him. Take a seat."

"So," Hermione said, taking a bite of chicken and looking curiously at the two of them. "Ron was telling me you have a job working for the Aurors now?"

"Yeah," Malfoy said, his voice still wavering, but he looked at the bouquet in the middle of the table and seemed to draw courage from it. He looked back at Hermione with a tentative smile that she returned with full force. "We're designing tattoos to help on missions. He hasn't given us details yet, but it's an interesting concept."

"I suppose it could be," Hermione mused. "Would distance be a problem with that kind of partner thing? Only that the fifth law of connection magic..." she trailed off, tongue trapped between her teeth in that way that clearly said she was deep in thought. 

"I was wondering the same thing," Malfoy cut in, and now his voice was excited. Harry smiled. He recognized this demeanor, the way Malfoy leaned forward slightly and his eyes lit up like he was opening a present. It meant this was a topic he was interested in, something he could talk about for a while. "Except Harry came up with a charm for this tattoo —“ he held up his wrist “— and I realized that it's different if you use blood magic."

Ron raised an eyebrow at Harry while Draco and Hermione got deep into another discussion on the technicalities of distance magic, and Harry smiled back at him, unable to hold it back.

_He's mine_ , he wanted to shout from the rooftops. _He’s Draco Malfoy, and he’s mine._

When they left the Granger-Weasley flat that night, everyone was in high spirits, Malfoy included. 

"That was wonderful," Hermione said, smiling at the two of them. "You two have to come over sometime again, soon preferably. Draco, I never would have thought I'd say this, but it was a delight."

"Likewise," Malfoy said formally, and Ron snorted. 

"I've never met anyone who can match me at chess, so cheers." He held up his bottle towards Malfoy and Malfoy grinned back at him. "I'll be expecting a rematch the next time you come over."

Harry smiled at Ron — that was implying that he wanted there to be a next time — and then he wrapped his arm around Malfoy's back.

"We'll see you soon, then," Harry smiled, and they were back at his flat in a whirl of apparition. 

The next day was bleak. 

The newspapers still seemed determined to churn out article after article about the state of their relationship, even though they hadn't confirmed anything, and it was starting to grate on his nerves. It only made things worse that they were now in an actual relationship. Harry didn't think he could read another article listing the possible drugs Malfoy was using without exploding. 

That's why, when he walked down in the morning to find Malfoy reading the newspaper with a scrunched look on his face, Harry's wrist started to change colors.

The tattoo had been immensely helpful over the past few days, a precursor to warn him that he had to get his temper down. 

"They have to stop writing about us," Harry muttered, clenching his fists and looking down at the ground. Malfoy looked up at him over the top of the paper, eyes curious. "I'm sorry. I'm getting angry about this, and I know I shouldn't. Er — you might want to leave before I get really mad and end up taking it out on you."

"Breathe," Malfoy said. Usually that kind of thing wasn't helpful — Harry knew to breathe. That was obvious. But hearing it in Malfoy's voice was usually helpful in getting him to calm down. 

"I'm trying," Harry said, teeth gritted, because for once he really didn't want to come down. "But I'm serious. It's probably best if you give me some space."

Malfoy looked at him for a long second and then nodded, giving Harry a small smile.

"Call if you need me," he said simply, and he walked out the front door, casting a stasis charm on the house behind him that would protect from any potential harm. The door clicked behind him and Harry let out a heavy breath, letting the anger well up inside of him and letting his wrist glow hot red, the kind of red that reminded him of fires and muggle fire engines and danger and stop signs and red lights and everything wrong. 

He let it glow, relished in the prickle, let the anger build inside him and the magic flow out of his fingers. He was shaking with it, this irrational anger, and he let it flow out into the newspaper, tearing it into shreds with a savage joy as he watched their faces ripped into specks of inked paper that would be impossible to put back together. 

He let destruction brew around him with abandon, not doing anything to calm himself down or hold himself back. He let it all go free, surprised to find that the anger was lesser than usual, that he didn't have as much to anger him as before — Malfoy's face kept flashing before his eyes and sending waves of contentment through him, flashes of calm that overcame the anger and settled him down. 

When every last ounce of energy was gone, Harry collapsed to the couch. 

He wasn't sure how long it was before Malfoy came in. All he knew was that he was being wrapped up in a pair of strong arms, the same pair that he'd fallen asleep in, and there was a quiet voice whispering sweet nothings into his ear. Again, the kind of thing that still managed to take Harry by surprise when it was coming from Malfoy. 

"You're okay," Malfoy whispered quietly. "I told you you weren't going to hurt anyone. Did you see how well that worked? You recognized you were getting angry, we dealt with it, everything's fine."

Harry let himself sink into the words, into the lull of Malfoy's voice and the truth of what he was saying. He let it wash over him like a wave, cold after the warmth of the sun, dousing after the waves of angry magic. 

"I'm proud of you," Malfoy said softly, his arms tightening around Harry. "You would never have been able to control yourself on your own before, but now you can. I'm proud of you."

Harry could feel tears prickling at the corners of his eyes, but he resolutely ignored them, leaning further into the warmth of Malfoy and relishing everything around him. He didn't want this to end. He wanted to lie here forever in Malfoy's arms, to have words whispered into his ears and breath warm against his neck. He never wanted to leave this couch where he felt so completely at home, like the place he'd been missing for so long. 

It felt like returning to Hogwarts after a particularly bad summer at the Dursleys, a place where he was finally accepted, a place where he could be himself fully, a place where he was safe from his problems because he was surrounded by love. 

He realized this all with a start, a jolt that shot through him with the echo of the word love, a word that he wasn't supposed to be thinking about yet. So he didn't. He closed his eyes and let Malfoy stroke long fingers through his hair, let himself fall into the sensation without expecting anything, let himself simply exist in the arms of somebody who he wanted to give everything to. 

"We should get ready for work soon," Malfoy murmured in his ear, fingers still brushing softly over the back of Harry's neck, sending shockwaves that shuddered through his body, because he'd never tire of the touch somebody else gave him, especially when it was Malfoy. 

"Mmm," Harry hummed, letting one eye open and looking up at Malfoy. "Soon. We still have time."

"Are you okay?" Malfoy asked, fingers brushing his forehead. "Is there anything I can do? Do you want to — er, do you want to talk?"

"I'm okay," Harry said. "More than. You don't need to do anything else, Draco, just being with you is more than enough." He closed his eye again and wrapped his own arm around Malfoy, wanting to show him, wanting him to understand that this was bigger than anything else he'd experienced, that Malfoy was something he might never want to let go of for as long as he lived.

"You're ridiculous," Malfoy muttered fondly, brushing his hand over Harry's forehead once more. "I'm going to go make tea for us, yeah?"

"In a minute," Harry murmured, and Malfoy hummed contentedly, holding on to Harry as though he never wanted to let go of him. They lay there until they couldn't any longer, and when Malfoy finally stood up, Harry couldn't keep the smile from his face.

Malfoy was everything. 


	49. Chapter 49

Robards stopped by the next morning with a lost of possible tattoos that he wanted to commission, offering a handsome sum of money merely for the consultation, so much so that Malfoy stared at it for a few long minutes with his mouth open.

And, unsurprisingly, it didn’t take the two of them long. With their combined drive to create and the similar trances they sunk into, only momentarily interrupting each other to consult on how best to mix potions or enchantments, or with temporary pauses to test whether or not they had something that would work, it was no shock how quickly they managed it. They got lost in it, in the best of ways, and it was only two days at work — perhaps neglecting his usual job slightly — before Harry and Malfoy had completed nearly every item on the list. 

It was only two days later that Harry came down to find Malfoy reading the newspaper with a tiny smile on his face. He heard Harry’s footsteps and looked up, tossing the paper over to allow his examination. 

“Read this,” he said, looking incredibly satisfied, although Harry was sure there had to be some twist — the newspapers never printed anything actually good. If they were, something was dreadfully wrong. 

And then Harry saw the article. 

On the front was a large picture of Skin Deep, and underneath an article proclaiming them as the most useful business of the year. There were paragraphs of Robards praising them and various testaments from Aurors — vague, for security purposes — raving about how good their tattoos were. And then Harry reached the paragraph Malfoy had been pointing at, and his heart leapt. 

_‘None of this would have been possible without the help of Draco Malfoy, potioneer who aided Harry Potter in designing enchantments for these tattoos. I fully endorse both of their skills,’ said Robards, Head Auror. Such praise coming from a man as reputable as the Head Auror makes one wonder — is the proclaimed Death Eater as bad as the media suggests? Or has he redeemed himself, working alongside Harry Potter?_

Harry looked back at Malfoy who was still smiling brilliantly. 

“They’re right, you know,” Harry laughed. “You have redeemed yourself.”

“There’s more,” Malfoy said hesitantly, and he picked at one fingernail, looking in a different direction. 

“What?”

“Robards gave us a lot of money for that,” Malfoy said hesitantly. “And — well — I’ve been looking for a flat ever since you let me stay here. It’s extremely generous for you to give me a place, but it’s temporary, of course. It’s been difficult because of who I am — people turn me away. They keep talking about how I’ve lost my fortune, etcetera. But I have enough now, and with this article…” he trailed off, his smile growing. “I’ve closed a deal on a place.”

Harry looked at him in surprise, not sure how to feel. 

“Er — that’s wonderful, I guess!”

Malfoy laughed fondly, looking down at the newspaper that Harry had replaced on the table in front of him. “Look, Potter, don’t get all offended. I would gladly spend all my time here, but we’ve been dating for what, a couple weeks? It’s not the best idea to go live with each other already. If we had to break up, or… well. It’s just a bad idea. It doesn’t mean I won’t come here whenever I get the chance.”

“Okay,” Harry said, a breath of relief. “Yeah. That sounds perfect.” When Malfoy stood up to kiss him, his mouth still tasting of strawberries, Harry let everything flee his mind except for the feel of Malfoy against him, the feeling of being liked, of somebody _wanting_ to be this close to him, genuinely wanting him, even though he’d seen the worst of Harry, the destruction and anger and panic. 

Malfoy was still here, after everything, and it didn’t seem like he’d be leaving any time soon.

And now Harry reclined on the armchair in Malfoy’s flat, easing himself back and looking around. It looked brand new, neatly unpacked, the kind of organization that Harry rarely achieved. He liked it here — it felt homely, something completely different than the Manor, prickling with dark magic and coated with portraits of Malfoy ancestors that followed you disdainfully with their eyes. 

“Do you want to come visit my mother later?” Malfoy asked, looking up momentarily from where he’d been engrossed in a book. 

“Sure. The hospital probably closes to visitors soon, d’you want to head out now?”

Malfoy nodded and stood up from the chair, setting the book down on the seat beside him. His hand brushed against Harry’s on his way over to the door, something that still never failed to send shivers down the length of Harry’s spine. He turned his hand over to grab on to Malfoy’s.

Malfoy knew the way to his mother’s ward without having to ask — Harry expected he’d been there multiple times alone to see her. 

“Draco,” she said fondly when she saw him. It was strange to hear her talk, especially for Harry, when the last thing he’d heard her say was a scream. She still looked frail, her hair thin and somewhat whiter than usual, looking like it would break at a single touch, but apart from that she was also smiling, her eyes glistening with something like tears. She scratched at her head and then reached out towards Malfoy, her hand shaking slightly. 

“How are you?,” Draco asked, so softly, taking her hand and clasping it between his own. No snark, for once. 

“Alive,” she grimaced. “Seeing you makes all this worth it, darling.” Draco blushed and looked away at her words, but he didn’t let go of her hand, somehow even paler than the white of Draco’s own skin. 

There was silence for a moment. Harry felt like he was intruding on this, like he shouldn’t be welcome, because Narcissa wasn’t his mother. He felt like they should have time alone together, away from him — Merlin knows he was around Draco enough already. 

“Why have you brought Harry Potter with you?” Narcissa asked, voicing Harry’s own thoughts. Draco shifted from foot to foot restlessly, changing his weight. The cabinets were filled to the brim with potions of all kinds, some that looked rather dull, some that were impossible to tell apart from water. There was a tube running from Narcissa’s wrist to a vial that was steadily releasing some kind of green liquid. Harry looked away. 

“He’s my boyfriend,” Malfoy said, a hint of defiance to his voice, even though he was dealing with a deathly ill mother. Harry froze at the word. He hadn’t heard it spoken aloud before, _boyfriend,_ and it held a whole different significance. Narcissa had a similar reaction, tense for a moment, but then she relaxed and fixed Harry with her gaze. 

“Is he really?” she asked, sounding almost _proud_ which wasn’t the reaction Harry had expected from a pureblood mother. But she was, she was smiling at Draco, looking content. “Good for you.” She looked at Harry then, face narrowing slightly. “You’d better treat him right, Harry Potter. I don’t care what he was forced into during the past.”

“Yes ma’am, of course,” Harry said, trying to reassure her. “I like him very much.”

“I’m glad,” she said softly, and then she let her eyes flutter closed, drifting off into sleep.

Malfoy looked over at Harry, eyes wide, more affectionate than he usually showed in a public place. “I’m glad too, you know,” he said quietly. “I like you very much as well.”

Harry smiled, and at that moment absolutely nothing could ruin his mood.

* * *

The world had come together. 

It wasn’t even that everything was perfect now, because it wasn’t — that’s not how the world worked. Ginny still disapproved, and she still held a grudge against Malfoy that she probably wouldn’t be letting go of any time soon. Harry still had nightmares — he still had urges for Dreamless Sleep, he still had breakdowns and spouts of anger. Malfoy’s mother was still dying, the war had still happened, and the newspapers were still snooping around as usual. 

But the thing was, it no longer mattered quite so much. Little things barely jarred him, big things were surprisingly tame in his eyes. 

He had friends who he saw at least twice a week — Ron, Hermione, Luna, Dean — and friendswho were always there for him, a job that he could spend his whole life doing and never get tired of, and most of all he had Malfoy. 

He felt like he could spend his whole life in this state and never get tired of it. Not of the feel of Malfoy against him, nightly debates about whatever topic struck their fancy, sitting in the corner of a library with Malfoy or having Malfoy surprise him with tickets to a Quidditch game. 

Their client list had grown as well. After hearing the article, people were clamoring, coming up with new possibilities so quickly that it was almost difficult to keep up with everything.

And now Harry stood in the back of the shop, surveying the room in front of him. There were customers milling around, examining the displays they had set up that explained limitations and unexplored areas of magical tattoos. The bell tinkled its merry greeting — a familiar sound — and Harry made his way over to the door. 

It was Malfoy standing in the doorway, smiling around with one hand resting lightly on his hip, leaning against the wall. He met Harry’s eye and Harry was thrown suddenly back to the first time Malfoy had come into his shop, when he’d attempted to have Malfoy thrown out, when a rage coursed through him so fiercely that he almost destroyed the shop.

All of that was gone now. Now, he smiled at Malfoy softly — greeted him with a brush against his hand, murmuring in his ear. 

“I love you,” Harry whispered, low enough that only Malfoy could hear. Malfoy rolled his eyes and strode past Harry, turning around to look over his shoulder. 

“Shut up and get to work, you sap.”

Harry just grinned. This thing from before, their rivalry, a connection that had only run skin deep — now it was something else entirely. When Harry spoke the words, they felt right. He knew they were true on instinct without having to think about anything else. 

He loved Malfoy, with the depths of his heart. He loved Draco Malfoy and everything he brought into Harry’s life, and he wouldn’t have it any other way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wOW I can't believe I actually finished this, I literally have no clue what I'm doing and no clue how to write, and especially no clue how to write love so... 
> 
> Thank you so so SO much to all you wonderful folks who left the nicest comments, I've read each of them a million times over (even if I'm awful at responding and it takes me a while!) This fic is dedicated to anybody who's reading this because I can't even explain how happy you make me :) Yayyyy!


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